Remember Tadd Fujikawa? He's going through Q-School, which just started in Florida this week.

Tadd Fujikawa has faced long odds from the moment he was born, 3 1/2 months premature and so tiny his parents could hold him in one hand. He might be one of the few who can put the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament into perspective.

The 18-year-old Moanalua High School graduate tees off in the First Stage this morning (3:47 a.m. HST) at St. Johns Golf & Country Club in St. Augustine, Fla. Over the next two weeks, nearly 1,000 golfers will play at 13 First-Stage sites around the country.

About 20 from each site advance to six Second-Stage sites next month, where they will be joined by PGA Tour members who finished outside the top 150 on the money list, among others.

Then- once playing with the elite of the elite who aren't quite on Tour, they battle it out for just a couple spots on next year's big boy circuit. It's brutal and frankly Tadd's chances are quite slim. Still- you have to root for him.

Actually, when a story gets built up like Tadd's has over the past couple of years- you actually do have to root for him. It's actually annoying when sports situations come to this. It's easy to root against Kobe Bryant, or heck, even Tiger Woods- but you can't root against Brett Favre the week after his dad died. Of course, Brett has long since lost his untouchable status, but you get the point. Rooting against Tadd Fujikawa is like saying you hate babies or want to kick puppies- you just can't do it.

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