By RON KROICHICK, San Francisco Chronicle

For the first time in nearly nine months on Thursday, Tiger Woods played 18 holes in a PGA Tour event and signed a scorecard showing his total number of strokes. Gone is the pop-culture hoopla surrounding his return in Arizona and the uncommon rhythm of match play, which sent Woods home after two days.

They both roared down golf's superhighway in the past few days -- one player nearly shaking a burdensome trail of scrutiny and skepticism at age 19, the other bursting into the entertainment capital of the world at 17 and chirping, "Hello, America!"
Maybe, if we're lucky, Japanese teenager Ryo Ishikawa will slow down and learn from Michelle Wie.

Masashi Yamada holds a dubious place in the lore of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Yamada, a Japanese businessman, teamed with Bruce Vaughan to win the pro-am competition in 1995 -- until tournament officials belatedly learned Yamada's handicap (15) was well north of accurate. They stripped him of the title.

Youth is all the rage in golf these days. Anthony Kim, 23, wades in hype as the next great challenger to Tiger Woods. Lorena Ochoa's two biggest threats, according to the women's world rankings, are Yani Tseng (age 20) and Paula Creamer (22).

Now making his 2009 debut on the PGA Tour, ready to march toward the raucous 16th hole at TPC Scottsdale and eager to sharpen his game before he reaches Magnolia Lane in April ...
No, not him.

Paul Goydos counts as one of the truly appealing characters on the PGA Tour.

Safe to say, Tim Finchem will not drag an elderly lady into one of Pebble Beach's bunkers, as Bill Murray once did. Finchem wasn't even sure how to answer the question, posed playfully this week, about staging an encore to Murray's act. He hesitated before saying, "That's really not my style."

On Golf tinkered with one of those fashionable list columns to launch 2009 -- say, 10 story lines to watch in the coming PGA Tour season, which began Thursday in Maui. Only a boilerplate list might suggest all story lines are created equal, and that's clearly not the case.
Not when You Know Who is lurking in the lobby, restless to join the fray.

Let's hope the gentlemen in green jackets saw the stories coming out of New Zealand over the weekend. That way, they immediately can begin arranging pairings for the opening round of the Masters on April 9, putting Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in the same group.

Despite the change to a 20-foot, 9-inch distance, it didn't take long for Virginia Military Institute to show it would keep firing three-pointers this season. VMI went into Rupp Arena on Nov. 14, let fly 31 times, made 14 and toppled Kentucky in one of the first splashy upsets of the college basketball season.