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In Demand: Tiger Woods in Melbounre - Source: Getty Images
Tiger Woods' arrival on Saturday to resume the search for his missing greatness signals the start of the most important five weeks for Australian golf in many years.
Thanks largely to the Presidents Cup delivering a host of often travel-shy Americans, a vast array of the world's best golfers will tee it up during four events - the Australian Open, Presidents Cup, Australian PGA and Australian Masters.
After struggling to attract just a handful of marquee foreign players per season, it's a dramatic turnaround.
Seven of the world's top 10 ranked players are flying in for one or more tournaments - No.1 Luke Donald, No.4 Dustin Johnson, No.5 Steve Stricker, No.7 Jason Day, No.8 Adam Scott, No.9 Webb Simpson and No.10 Matt Kuchar - with only No.2 Lee Westwood, No.3 Rory McIlroy and No.6 Martin Kaymer missing.
The depth of talent is almost as impressive with 14 of the top 20 and 27 of the top 50 headed Down Under.
Australian golf elder statesman Jack Newton says not since the 1970s, when Jack Nicklaus helped Kerry Packer assemble many of the top 20, has the Australian Open had a field like that assembling for next week's championship at The Lakes in Sydney.
For quality of fields over several tournaments, the gathering of talent is unprecedented.
"I would think it's probably the best stretch of golf we've had in Australia's history," said Golf Australia chief executive Stephen Pitt.
Throw in the two biggest golf headline makers an Australian promoter could hope for - Woods and Greg Norman, who has already stirred the pot - and it's a rare opportunity for golf to hog the national sporting landscape.
Tour veteran Craig Parry sees it as a heaven-sent opportunity to attract a new generation to the game.
"It's going to be front page, back page, it's going to lead the news - it's going to put golf in the No.1 spot," said Parry.
"The young kids that will come out and play golf because they've seen it on TV or went to a tournament, that's going to be fantastic for our sport."
The challenge for Pitt and tour officials is to ensure they capitalise to the hilt as the Presidents Cup surely won't be back for years.
They'll be praying for a resolution to a current impasse as coverage of the Presidents Cup will be severely compromised if major media outlets including AAP, News Limited and Fairfax refuse to cover the event due to what they consider overly restrictive conditions imposed by the US PGA Tour.
The biggest storyline of the season is the quest by captain Norman and his International team to end the embarrassing American stranglehold on the biennial Presidents Cup.
To win for only the second time in nine contests, they have to overcome a US team which looks far stronger on world rankings.
But they're back at the scene of their only previous win in 1998 and counting on Australian wind and some local knowledge of Royal Melbourne's wiles and slick greens to tip the balance.
Pitt and his colleagues have shown they understand the publicity gift they've been handed by lining up a pre-Australian Open media conference for Norman on Monday followed by a Woods conference on Tuesday.
Norman has primed those headlines by declaring he wouldn't have picked 14-time grand slam champion Woods for the Presidents Cup if he'd been in US counterpart Fred Couples' shoes as his form doesn't warrant it.
Newton too understands Norman's value as a lightning rod for media coverage.
"Greg is traditionally going to shoot his mouth off when he comes back to this country or he's got anything to do with an event and he's had a bit of a slap at Tiger," said Newton.
"I'm sure it's tongue in cheek, but if I was Fred Couples I'd have put (Woods) in my team as well just for the intimidation factor mainly and he's a bit of an X-factor for sure."
There are plenty of sub-plots to savour in the coming weeks.
Can Woods, now ranked outside the top 50, find something like the game he lost a couple of years ago, not long after notching his last win at the 2009 Australian Masters?
"Whether he is going to be at his optimum out here I don't know. I doubt it," said Newton.
Having armed himself with a long putter and Woods' former caddie Steve Williams, can Adam Scott maintain the resurgence that made him a Masters runner-up and World Golf Championships winner this season?
Newton thinks so, describing Williams as a "pretty tough nut" who may be demanding more from Scott, who has been one "of those guys who was very talented and just seemed to be floating along".
And can countryman Jason Day - who will turn 24 at the Australian Open - continue the precocious form that has made him world No.7?
Newton loved the fact that he was still fearlessly going for his shots down the stretch when runner-up at both the Masters (tied with Scott) and US Open.
"They are X-factor qualities that not many young blokes in their first go at Augusta or at a US Open would show."
Golf's golden summer doesn't even end with the Australian Masters, less than a fortnight before Christmas, where world No.1 Englishman Donald is the big drawcard and may arrive as the first player to top the US and European money lists in the same year.
February's Australian Women Open has just linked with the US LPGA Tour, ensuring many more of the world's best players join the sport's new superstar Yani Tseng - who has won 11 times this year - and Karrie Webb in the field.
The opportunity is there to get those big names to the Australian Ladies Masters as well and do for Australian women's golf what Woods, Donald, Day, Scott and co will do for the men's game.
