Daniel Chopra just beat two-time defending PGA Tour Comeback Player of the Year Steve Stricker in a playoff to win the 2008 Mercedes-Benz Championship. If I had not told you that, I'm willing to bet that you wouldn't know that. I know this because hardly any players of major note were in the field this week.

Yes, defending champion Vijay Singh and personal favorite Jim Furyk made the trek to Hawaii to jumpstart the year. But, world number one Tiger Woods decided to stay at home. Phil Mickelson must hate Hawaii - how can you? - because he never bothers to go to the Mercedes when he can. Padraig Harrington decided to stay home, but being a new dad, that can be excused.

Ernie Els and Sergio Garcia may very well have made the trip had they actually managed to win a PGA Tour event last season. The popular duo has been in a multi-season winless drought.

The combination of superstar apathy and former superstar impotency for the season opener of the PGA Tour has led to calls for changes to the event. Some of the players in the field continued their call to push back the beginning of the season just a few weeks. After all, players do have families and lives too and want an opportunity to enjoy the holidays with their loves ones. That is much tougher to do when a trip to Hawaii looms just before the New Year. Even if it a trip to paradise, it is a long haul to the Big Island.

The media has made a suggestion that perhaps the invitation requirements of the event should change. A winners-only event is not exactly an exclusive format these days. With the innovation (used loosely) of the World Golf Championships and the ever-increasing number of invitational events, the concept of the ultra limited-field is passé. Why not liven the event up with a new gimmick? How about using this event as a way to adopt the LPGA Tour's wildly successful cutthroat format governing the ADT Championship?

Regardless of what is proposed for the future, the reality is that the present of the Mercedes-Benz Championship is not very good. A not-so-good reality means that this event does not generate a whole lot in the way of fan interest. That means that a very limited number of golf and sports fans are going to actually watch the golf tournament.

That has to make tournament broadcaster The Golf Channel very unhappy. When they signed up for an unprecedented 15 year broadcast deal with the PGA Tour, they earned the right to exclusively broadcast the first three events of the year. Knowing that the Sony Open is kind of a dud, they must have assumed that the Mercedes would generate a lot of fans. They have gotten a raw deal in that regard, though.

Last year, critics of the Tour's move to TGC (including me) remarked that the lousy ratings were an indication that the Golf Channel was not ready for primetime. Maybe the truth is that the PGA Tour is not ready for primetime. The opening event of the year does not draw fans because there is little reason for them to care about the outcome. If the first presentation of the season for a sport is mediocre, then fan interest will equal it. The most important players on Tour are not doing their part and fans simply will not oblige the Tour's invitation to watch an event that consistently does not meet its potential.

Hell, the PGA Tour itself does not appear to support this event. Commissioner Tim Finchem may not even be in on who won the Mercedes-Benz Championship. He did not even bother to show up to Kapalua's Plantation Course for the opening week of the Tour season. He took a lot of flak from players in the field and rightfully so. After all, how in the world could the top brass of the PGA Tour expect that their best qualifying players would appear in Kapalua if they, too, thought that an appearance was optional?

With so many questions surrounding the beginning of the Tour's season, it is no wonder that the actual result takes a backseat to what should be done to fix the event. The Tour - both players and senior officials - have to make a commitment to kicking off the season with a bang. If that means moving the event, changing the format, changing the date, or striking it altogether, the tough decisions should be made for the betterment of the Tour. This event has a fifty year history and, for that reason alone, it deserves to be given a chance to shine again.