The desert sand was barely settled following Henrik Stenson's season-ending victory in Dubai to top the European Tour money list when he withdrew from the first tournament of the new golf season.
While Stenson finally gets to rest a lingering right wrist injury, the unrelenting European Tour schedule rolls right on this week with the South African Open in Johannesburg, the first event on the 2014 calendar.
It's the first of 52 tournaments surely the most constant schedule in sport that will take the Race to Dubai back to Dubai in exactly 12 months.
After playing four consecutive tournaments with the niggling injury in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates in a successful attempt to hold on to his lead in the money race, Stenson decided to skip Johannesburg to recover.
Stenson won the South African Open last year but his absence when the season starts again on Thursday as usual without any gap leaves 2011 U.S. Masters champion Charl Schwartzel as the favorite to win a first title at his home open, which dates to 1893 and is the second oldest national championship after the British Open.