The members of Justin Leonard's immediate family weren't the only ones devastated when he missed the 12-foot putt that would have won last year's PGA Championship. Who else could have been so broken up, you ask? Those among the half million people who play in fantasy golf leagues across the country and had a piece of the 32-year-old Texan.

The basic premise behind fantasy golf is simple: You manage your collection of PGA Tour players (LPGA, Champions or Nationwide leagues are only for the truly devoted) and pit your squad against other teams. Every week you total the points - either from prize money earned or some other statistical measure. The team with the best total at the end of the season wins cash, a cheesy trophy, a firm handshake or whatever other prize you and your mates come up with. And thanks to the ability of fantasy sports to get you addicted to daily box scores, you're a little more interested when Davis Love III threatens to come up short yet again in a major - especially if you're his virtual general manager.

The original pick-your-pro game remains a popular fantasy alternative. Pick the winner of every PGA Tour event - before the season begins and you can only choose a player once - and you get credit for that player's earnings that week. It's similar to the picks Mark O'Meara and John Cook make for Golf World on the following page.

Mind you, there are other versions of fantasy golf that are elegantly simple. A typical league goes something like this: Eight to 12 team owners pick 10 players each at an appropriately raucous draft party (where an owner is strenuously ridiculed for everything from his physique to his relative lack of intelligence for taking a flyer on David Duval). Each owner picks six players weekly to be on the active list. The total money they earn for the week goes toward the team's yearly total. Whoever "earns" the most money through the Tour Championship wins bragging rights until the next draft in January.

Can't find enough friends who can tell Stuart Appleby and Robert Allenby apart? Compete against team owners from around the world in free online fantasy games such as CBS SportsLine's PGA Tour-affiliated version (www.pgatour.com/fantasy). In the SportsLine game, players are assigned dollar values (Vijay Singh was worth $350,000 in 2004, while Dean Wilson was $60,000) and you pick whichever five you like - as long as the combined salaries fit under a $1-million cap. Your team earns points based on your players' performance in categories like driving distance, putting and tournament finish. Your results are ranked among all the other players online, and the team with the week's best total wins a box of golf balls - which you can use if you can tear yourself away from the computer. ESPN has a similar game at its site. They require nothing more than a simple registration procedure (name, valid e-mail address, etc.) to play.

Another way to get "invested" in the game is to play the golf market. At www.golfinvestors.com, you buy and sell (and even short or leverage) player "stocks" with a free trading account that starts with a balance of $500,000 fantasy dollars. A player's stock value fluctuates according to demand from other investors (which, presumably, is a function of how many winner's checks a player is cashing). The site is designed to replicate the stock market - which means some moguls are buy-and-hold types, while others are predators looking for a bargain stock to flip. You can measure your performance against the world of other golf investors or even start a league with friends to see who can build the most portfolio value throughout the season. If that isn't realistic enough for you, the site even offers a way to invest real money in a slice of a (hopefully) up-and-coming player - sort of like owning a racehorse, but without the mint juleps.

Golf is just a blip on the fantasy sports radar compared to football (an estimated 12 million participants) and baseball (five million). But with golf's marquee personalities, easy-to-follow schedule, real-time online scoring and wall-to-wall television coverage, it isn't a stretch to believe fantasy golf could eclipse the NBA in participation.

Just be careful about dismissing fantasy sports as a fad or a teenager's diversion. According to a Fantasy Sports Trade Association survey, 7.2 percent of all American adults have played fantasy sports games, spending an average of three hours a week and more than $150 a year on his or her teams. That's a lot of Albert Pujolses, Peyton Mannings - and Vijay Singhs.