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The PGA Tour season has completed its annual West Coast and Florida swings. But for millions of freeze-dried golfers counting the days until the first thaw, The Masters tournament from April 8 through 11, the first of the game's four major championships, marks the only true official harbinger of spring. It's a time to revel in the blossoming beauty of Augusta National and begin serious thinking about all those birdies, bogies and other adventures soon to come at their own home courses. CBS does magnificent work televising The Masters during the final two rounds, and its crews also provide pretty pictures and cogent commentary in the hushest of reverential tones for the Thursday and Friday rounds on USA Network. And now this tournament, like other events on the PGA, Senior, Nike and LPGA tours, can be followed on your home or office computer. Over the last 10 years, a number of outstanding Web sites catering both to hard-core golfers and avid or casual followers of the game have popped up all over the information highway. A little local knowledge of the better sites opens the clubhouse door to a thoroughly satisfying golfing experience, minus those tricky little four-foot putts and shanked shots into the high hay. Here are a few of our favorite stops. www.golfweb.com Now under the umbrella of www.CBSsportsline.com, this site is among the most comprehensive of all, with all manner of intriguing features. There's also terrific writing on the site, courtesy of some of the game's top golfing journalists from around the world, as well as an archive that goes back several years to relive some of the game's most recent history. www.thegolfchannel.com If you like the dish channel (ch. 304) devoted exclusively to the game 24 hours a day, you'll love the Web site, particularly its emphasis on instruction. Many of the game's top teachers offer pointers, pictures and step-by-step demonstrations, including short game guru Dave Pelz and David Leadbetter, coach to the stars. There's also a heavily used chat room that allows users to share the game's joy and agony with fellow sufferers as well as a detailed guide to the day's programming. www.golf.com One of the older sites on the Web, it's also tied in to NBC Sports and Golf Digest, with a link to the magazine that's a valuable research and instructional tool in its own right. A number of top-flight sports journalists also write exclusively for the site, which also includes a regular feature from Robert K. Winters on the mental side of the game. There's a women's forum and a section also devoted specifically to getting children and junior golfers up and swinging. www.pgatour.com The official Web site of the PGA Tour also is all-encompassing, with a wide variety of features. The game's top players offer instructional tips, there's a section on "positive thoughts," an equipment spotlight and a weekly question-and-answer session with the hot player of the moment. The travel section is among the best out there, including course reviews of tour venues that are open to the public along with recommendations for hotels and dining nearby. www.masters.org Hard-core Masters enthusiasts unable to obtain weekly badges to walk on the hallowed grounds would be wise to plug in here to Augusta National's official site, which opened for business on March 1. In addition to real-time scoring during tournament week, a wide variety of news stories and features off each day's play will be available, along with panoramic shots of the prettiest places on the grounds, including Magnolia Lane, the stately old clubhouse and selected holes around the course. www.augustagolf.com This site is a joint effort between CNN/Sports Illustrated (ch. 205) and the Augusta Chronicle, the hometown newspaper that provides arguably the most complete coverage of The Masters of any daily in the country. The Chronicle sends a small army of reporters and photographers out to the course every day during tournament week, and the same articles and pictures in the daily paper will be available on the site, along with scoreboards and statistics. All that's missing on this site is the sweet scent of azaleas blooming in the spring. And who knows? Perhaps one day, they will discover a computer chip to transmit the sense of smell through the screen. Until then, focusing your sense of sight on these golfing Web sites will simply have to do. Leonard Shapiro covers golf and other sports for the Washington Post. Back | Next | DSS Daily News | DSS Plus | DSS FAQS | Customer Service Subscribe | Press Releases | Contact Us | Hotlinks | Homepage ©1999 CommTek Communications Corporation - All Rights Reserved. Copyright and legal disclaimer DIRECTV is a registered trademark of DIRECTV, Inc., a unit of Hughes Electronics.