Ernie Els' personal Web site puts Tiger Woods' to shame. William R. Sallaz/SI

There are a million gin joints and golf Web sites out there. Too much sand and not enough time to sift through it all. In other words, too much of a good thing.

The World Wide Web is so vast that it can be difficult to find what you're looking for. So here's my list of 10 essential golf Web sites -- not including SI.com's Golf Plus page, because you're already here and clearly don't need a flashlight and a map to find us. (If you've got nominees for your own favorite golf stops, let me know. Perhaps we'll compile a follow-up list.)

GolfObserver.com. This is the hands-down winner for fans who want to read about golf. Golfobserver.com collects the day's best golf stories from around the world, filters out the rejects and presents them for your perusal. Just click on a link, and you're taken to sites for media outlets around the world, from the Los Angeles Times to Scotland On Sunday to the Melbourne Age.

It's the most comprehensive golf news site around, a derivative of the original What They're Writing site -- which PGATour.com later took over and debased -- and it's a genius idea. While most golf Web sites offer the same stale wire-service stories, this site directs you to original writing around the world. There are more bells and whistles, including guest columns by the irascible Frank Hannigan, a former USGA bigwig, and others.

It also offers Sal Johnson's GolfStats, the only place you can find players' tournament scores and results dating back to the 1970s. Golf writers I know liberally steal ideas from the day's top stories and we frequently do research on GolfStats.

ErnieEls.com. Probably the best player-hosted Web site I've seen. Sure, there may be more stuff on Shark.com (Greg Norman) or TigerWoods.com (thinly-veiled Nike outlet) but Ernie's site is personalized and fun. He blogs about his recent trips and makes it conversational, like this week's notes about his golf game not traveling very well to Korea, where he didn't play up to his usual standards. Next time you see something personal about Tiger on his Web site, it'll be the first time. Ernie also reports that the wine from his vineyard received a five-star rating from some official wine experts and, by the way, you can try it out the next time you're at Wentworth -- it's on the club menu.

ASAPSports.com. Want the raw, uncut version of journalism? It's right here in the form of official transcripts from press conferences not only in golf but in a bunch of sports. They're listed alphabetically for easy access. Click on golf, scroll down to the right letter of the alphabet and find your golfer and appropriate press conferences. It makes you realize what's good about a TV or magazine story. They've already edited out the useless stuff and left the wheat. But you might get a kick out of this if you're the curious type.

Golfweek.com. The weekly magazine's Web site is good because besides offering a lot of original content (and not just the usual wire service stories), it has a search engine. So if you're looking for a specific story on, say, Bill Haas, you can search for it. This is very handy and few, if any, Web sites offer this option. Golfweek's bread-and-butter is amateur golf and tournament results, the stuff the other magazines don't have the time, space and energy for.

Golfstarsonline.com. A good place to worship at the altar of your favorite players, it's also a handy place to do some research. The site offers an A-to-Z directory of players. A look at Kaname Yokoo's page includes a link to a first-person story he wrote about playing on the PGA Tour. On Sam Snead's page, for example, you can find links to some of his memorabilia for sale. It's not very thorough, but not a bad fan site.

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PGATour.com. You surely already know about this behemoth. For its size and breadth, this Web site probably has one of the worst offerings of news. The tour would rather have it serve as a public relations vehicle and as such, it does well. Its main assets are links to live scoring at PGA Tour events, including the Champions and Nationwide tours, and stats and tournament info for the events, including the European PGA Tour. If I need to see who's in the field at the BMW Open, I click here for the list. Lots of facts and figures --much better than a few years ago. Just don't expect objective journalism.

GeoffShackelford.com. This is basically a blog where golf historian/aficionado/purist Shackelford offers his opinions on the day's golf news. The opinions are frequently strong and sometimes funny. He recently ranted on the plethora of non-golf celebrities attending and/or performing at the Ryder Cup's opening ceremonies and singled out singer Macy Gray, noting that she has stated she plans to perform nude someday, probably at a charity function of some kind. He wonders aloud if the Ryder Cup might be that occasion. No political correctness here, just call-it-like-he-sees-it stuff, which may infuriate you but will seldom bore you.

InsideTheRopes.com. It's kind of a messy home page with links to all the same old wire stories, but founder Tom Auclair does have a different angle -- daily video interviews with PGA Tour players. They're archived, too. So if you want to see his one-on-one interview with Davis Love at, say, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, you can. I'm not sure, exactly, who watches player interviews, but it is thorough and unique. And yes, even Tiger Woods sometimes stops to talk to Euclair.

GolfClubAtlas.com. This is where golf-course architecture geeks come to die. You want to talk about course design, the aura of a Donald Ross bunker or debate the merits of the world's nearly 14,000 golf courses? This is the place. There are discussion groups and plenty of "In My Opinion" pieces. Lots of limited-interest articles and essays, but if you're an architecture junkie, you'll probably get into it.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Gary Van Sickle writes for the magazine's Golf Plus section and is a regular contributor to SI.com.