As the first major of the year, The Masters is the year's earliest test of the state of golf. A birdie-fest win at the tournament-formerly-known-as-the Bob Hope is one thing, but playing well at Augusta is another story entirely, and this year has been loaded full of weighty stories. Luke Donald began the year at the top spot in the world, but a resurgent Rory McIlroy quickly stole that away. Despite the young Ulsterman's finishes of second, first, and third on the PGA Tour early on, Donald was able to take back the number one ranking with a victory at Innisbrook.

Equally impressive has been the play of numerous Americans, veterans and young-guns. Steve Stricker started off the year with a win at Kapalua, and he was followed by a crop of young players including Brandt Snedeker, Kyle Stanley, John Huh, and Hunter Mahan.

Phil Mickelson also picked up an early-season win at Pebble, and most recently Tiger Woods returned to the winner's circle, triumphing at Bay Hill for the seventh time. He'll have to put aside all of he talk about hank Haney's tell-all is he wants to win his fifth green jacket.

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For the past few months, EA Sports has been slowly rolling out its list of new features for this year's edition of Tiger Woods PGA Tour. Starting with the fan voting that put Ricky Fowler on the cover of the U.S. version and Rory McIlroy on the international version, it has been a busy year for the developers.

After adapting the game to the Nintendo Wii and, more recently, the Playstation Move, this year EA is bringing the game to the Xbox 360 Kinect, which requires no controller at all and relies on cameras to track your body's movement. Also new this year are Tiger Legacy, which lets you play as Tiger Woods as a kid, online country clubs, Total Swing Control, as well as a crop of new players and courses.

With EA Sports' recent release of the newest edition of Tiger Woods PGA Tour, here are five of the most important new features you can expect to see in Tiger Woods PGA Tour Tour 13.

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Everybody has a few golfers out there that they just like for seemingly no reason. It could be because they won in your hometown, they are sponsored by your favorite brand, or because even the dress in a strange way. Much like picking favorite sports team, picking a favorite golfer doesn't have to be rational. In fact, a friend of mine from northern New Jersey is a die-hard Miami Dolphins fan. Why? Because as a kid he liked their team colors.

With parity becoming more and more prevalent in sports, stories like that (or at least the golf version, say, Ian Poulter's love of pink) are becoming more popular. Tiger and Phil haven't done as much as we were accustomed to over last few years, and their poor play has paved the way for many new faces to get time on T.V. Thanks to the PGA Tour's lenient rules that allow past greats to hang around, older guys have been able to stay on the radar.

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At the beginning of the season last year, I was trying (just as I am now) to write a column documenting the various rookies on the PGA Tour. And while there were a few nice stories, there simply just wasn't enough to fill out a whole article. Fast forward to the PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club, when Tour rookie Keegan Bradley was in the mix, and I began lamenting not writing the column. Bradley would to be the main fixture of the article, because while he didn't start with the highest of expectations, I knew more about him than most people, since we went to the same high school. (For the record, the other names I had written down were Jamie Lovemark, Justin Hicks, Kevin Chappell, Nate Smith, and Michael Thompson).

Unfortunately, there was simply not enough there, and a year of lamenting that fact has led me to this. Luckily, 2012 has provided us with a few more big names (a full list can be found here), as well as some nice stories, so without further ado, here are five Tour rookies likely to make a splash in 2012.

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This year at The Sand Trap, we've run five prediction columns. Back in January we made some general pre-season predictions, then we picked each of the four majors. Despite the fact that no one picked a single majors champion (I blame Tiger's demise for this, five years ago these would have been no-brainers), we had a few near-misses and plenty of nuggets of insight. And if there's anything we've learned this year, it's that I am not a psychic, and that I suck big time at predicting the future.

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The 18th hole can make or break your round. It's where you finish off your opponent, come from behind, or claim the trophy. When the leaderboard is crowded it can be the most stressful hole in golf, but with a big advantage it's a time to bask in the glories of victory, the one and only time you will ever see a professional golfer take off his hat and stride towards the green, arms waving in acknowledgement of crowd.

The best 18th holes combine risk and reward, and are the crown jewels of the course that architects dream about. You want to leave the golfer with a good taste in their mouths, because 17 lackluster holes can be forgotten thanks to one great one (which is probably why I always seen to hit the fairway on the last hole when I've played an entire crappy round). You want to offer the golfer a chance to make a birdie (or even an eagle), but you also want to punish bad shots, and make double bogey possible as well. On the PGA Tour this is all the more important, as multi-million dollar tournaments typically come down to the 72nd hole.

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