TEEING OFF

Five things to look for on the professional golf scene:

1. PEBBLE BEACH -- Chris Evert won 18 Grand Slam singles titles in tennis and Greg Norman won two majors on the golf course, but they’ve never been at an official PGA Tour event together -- until today.

Evert and Norman, who were engaged in December, are on hand for the AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, where Norman and his son, Gregory, 22, are playing together in the first round at Poppy Hills.

Evert, who has never attended a regular PGA Tour event, will walk along, with two of her sons, Alex, 16, and Nicky, 14.

So it’s something of a golf coming-out party for Evert and Norman, who are moving on together after their long marriages ended.

Evert, 53, was married 18 years to Andy Mill, who is the father of Alex, Nicky and another son, Colton. She paid Mill a reported $7 million in their divorce settlement.

Norman, who turns 53 on Sunday, split from his wife of 26 years, Laura, in June 2006 and paid Laura a reported $100 million in September in their divorce settlement.

2. Davis Love III, who tore ligaments in his left ankle when he stepped in a hole while playing golf in September, is making his comeback at Pebble Beach, where he has won twice.

Love, 43, who has fallen to 78th in the world rankings, is a 19-time PGA Tour winner, but was limited to 21 events last year and had his worst money-making year since 1994.

Love, who had surgery in October, said his rehabilitation was designed not only to improve his health, but his outlook.

“I get to refocus and get some new energy and looked at it as a big challenge,” he said. “I knew it was not going to be easy, but I knew I could do it. I never worried, ‘Will I be back?’ I worried about, ‘Can I get back to Pebble?’ ”

3. There are big hitters and there are Big Hitters, which is how you have to describe J.B. Holmes, who won the FBR Open on Sunday. Holmes is second to Bubba Watson in driving distance, averaging 312.4 yards, and hit a 429-yard drive on the 12th hole in the first round of the 2007 Mercedes Championship at Kapalua.

“But everybody hits it there,” he said.

Holmes, 25, a Kentucky native in his third year on the PGA Tour, has no problems with one of his most memorable drives -- he played the 542-yard 18th at Valhalla with a driver and pitching wedge to the green.

4. The PGA Tour’s new cut rule, which rankled some players at the Sony Open and the Buick when they made the cut but really didn’t, is going under the microscope.

Commissioner Tim Finchem will attend a meeting of the 16-member Player Advisory Council on Tuesday at Riviera Country Club, where the Northern Trust Open will be played.

It’s the PAC’s mandate to serve as advisors between the regular tour players and the PGA Tour Policy Board. There is a chance that the new cut rule, called the MDF for “Made cut, did not finish,” may get the heave-ho, but not in time to apply at the Northern Trust.

The MDF rule, designed to streamline weekend play, comes into play when the number of players making the cut exceeds 78 -- the low 70 and ties make the cut line. If more than 78 players make the cut, the actual cut is lowered to the closest number to 70.

A total of 37 players at the Sony and the Buick were eliminated from weekend play because of the MDF rule.

5. He’s 47 and even though the last of his six PGA Tour victories was 10 years ago, Steve Pate is back at it, playing this week at Pebble Beach. Last week, he tied for fifth in the Nationwide Tour event in Mexico, even though he got off to a rough start. His luggage was lost for three days, so Pate decided not to shave and his stubble grew out snow white.

When Pate donned a pair of Benjamin Franklin-like reading glasses, he immediately picked up a nickname from the other players.

“Grandpa,” he said.

Pate was inducted into the California Golf Writers Hall of Fame in an awards ceremony Tuesday night.

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STAT OF THE WEEK

Tiger Woods, above, isn’t playing this week, but in his four-tournament winning streak -- the BMW Championship, the Tour Championship, the Buick Invitational and Dubai Desert Classic -- he is 78 under par.

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A SLICE OF LIFE

Padraig Harrington, British Open champion, on speculation that Tiger Woods will win all four majors this year:

‘It’s interesting that the

prediction he’s going to win the Grand Slam, when last year . . . he only got one.’