By Mel Webb GolfWeb Columnist 'Tis the season to be jolly, or at least it will be shortly. For 50 professional golfers, there is much to celebrate right now. But spare a thought for dozens of others who have nothing to look forward to beyond the festive season but a future clouded with dreadful uncertainty. The larger group played in the tour qualifying school at San Roque, which ended last Thursday. Tour schools all over the globe are necessary evils, if only for the fact that for the game to grow and develop, the weak must fall by the wayside and the strong have to be given the chance to win their spurs.
Evolution begets pain for some, agonising ecstasy for others.
The smaller gang is made up of the leading 15 players on the Challenge Tour order of merit. Unlike some of their 35 peers, they already know what it is like to plod with increasingly weary steps through the highways and byways of Europe, so the rigours of life on the main tour will not come as any great surprise to them. They will be optimistic, every last one of them, that they can make their mark on the big boys' circuit. They have to be, for the man who doubts his ability will be swallowed up, chewed about and spat out by a system that is ready and waiting, jaws slavering, for the unwary. These guys know only two things for certain as they prepare themselves for the 2001 season.