Richie Coughlan starts his third tournament of the season in Pebble Beach today, determined to improve on his poor finish two weeks ago in Hawaii.

"The game's good. I have two new woods in the bag this week, a driver and three wood from Orlimar which I am very happy with, and I'm using that new Titleist ball, the Pro V1, and I'm hitting it at least 10 yards further," Coughlan said.

"I had a good test with them at Spyglass the other day, hit two new ones against two old ones several times, and every time they were 10 to 15 further. It's also a great ball in the wind, so that's a big advantage and I'm looking forward to the week."

Inevitably, Tiger Woods has to be the fancied runner to lift the trophy here this week, in spite of Mark Calcavecchia's incredible record-breaking victory last week in the Phoenix Open.

With the weather forecast set fair for the week, and several top stars itching to prove that Woods is not invincible, the scenic beauty of Pebble Beach is going to provide the backdrop for a fascinating four days.

Darren Clarke and Paul McGinley begin the Dimension Data Pro-Am in Sun City today, an event which is part of South Africa's Sunshine Tour.

Clarke won't want a repeat of his season-opening scoring in last week's South African Open, when he missed the cut by 10 shots.

In terms of boosting his world ranking position, the past few weeks have been disappointing for McGinley, back to 71st in the list after the South African Open.

Meanwhile, Nick Faldo wishes the organisers of the Heineken Classic starting in Perth today had been a little more imaginative than to pair him with old rival Greg Norman.

Two weeks ago the 43-year-old finished third in the Alfred Dunhill championship in South Africa. The two players ahead of him were Adam Scott and Justin Rose, both only 20.

Now, with 45-year-old Norman added to the cast, Faldo would love to have seen himself paired with Australian Scott and Norman with Rose, thereby setting up two Ashes duels.

"They've gone for the obvious (Rose and Scott are also paired) and while it will be good to play with Greg again, I think it would have been great to see if we could beat the two whipper-snappers," he said. "We both want to try."

David Higgins and Ronan Rafferty are also both in Perth for the co-sanctioned European Tour Australasian Tour event