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By Melanie Hauser
PGATOUR.com Correspondent

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- Where were you in 1982?

Think back. Starting your first job? High school? Junior high? In diapers?

Jack Nicklaus at Doral in 1982 (WireImage)

That was the year AT&T was slapped with an antitrust suit. It was eventually broken up into 22 phone companies. It was the year Ozzy Osborne bit the head off a live bat in concert. John Belushi died from an overdose.

Princess Diana was pregnant with Prince William. The Vietnam Memorial was under construction, Mexico's economy was failing and gas was $1.10 a gallon. A kid named Michael Jordan led North Carolina to the NCAA basketball title.

Chariots of Fire won the Oscar, Trapper and Hawkeye had M*A*S*H atop the TV ratings, Kim Carnes had the record of the year with "Bette Davis Eyes."

And in golf? It was the year of the dive. Yep, Jerry Pate's not-so-perfect 10 into the water at the 18th hole here. Took Deane Beman and Pete Dye with him.

Twenty five years. It doesn't sound that long, but it was. Consider that 1982 was the year THE PLAYERS Championship moved across the road to the new Pete Dye course, then known by players as an elephant and dinosaur burial ground. It was the first step toward making THE PLAYERS a tournament of, by and for the players.

Over the years, we've watched as they smoothed the rough edges on the course, lengthened the layout, updated it with a new Sub Aire system and much more. That's easy to see.

But what about the field? It's still the best in the game, but we decided to take a look at this year's lineup to put things into perspective.

And it slapped us in the face.

Believe it or not, just one player from 1982's field is also in the 2007 field -- Bobby Wadkins. Wadkins, who qualified for this event by winning the 2006 Ford Senior TPC, finished tied for 56th that year. He also did a little fishing in the ponds with Bruce Lietzke and Bill Rogers. No fitness trailer for those boys.

So, armed with that, we went to the locker room to find out where this year's field was when Pate made his now famous dive and, well, everyone involved spent the day laughing.

The unscientific survey had players trying to guess who the one player was, admitting to watching it on video tape and kidding each other about where they were when Pate took the dive. And shaking their collective heads about just how young this field really is.

Ryan Moore was born in 1982. He won the U.S. Amateur a little over 20 years later. (WireImage)

Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger was a 22-year-old rookie in '82 year, but couldn't get into THE PLAYERS field. "It was the first year of the top 125,'' he said, "and it took $27,000 to keep your card. I made $10,600."

Tiger Woods was already a star at 6. A first-grader at Cerritos Elementary, he already had the golf world talking. Was he being a 6-year-old brat? "What do you think?" he grinned.

His buddy Jason Gore was a few miles down the coast and, at 8, the toast of his Mustang team. "I was the Tiger Woods of Little League,'' he laughed.

Vaughn Taylor and Ian Poulter were into being 6. Taylor was riding bikes in Augusta while Poulter was playing football and soccer in England. Six-year-old Zach Johnson, your Masters champion, was into Legos, soccer and basketball in Cedar Rapids and Charles Warren? He, too was 6 and "trying to figure out if I was playing baseball or golf that day."

Joe Durant? He was senior at Escambia (Fla.) High -- Emmitt Smith High, he said -- and had just split with his first serious girlfriend. "The jury is still out whether I broke up with her or she broke up with me,'' he chuckled.

Steve Flesch was all of 4-foot-11 and trying -- in vain -- to make the freshman basketball team in Covington, Ky. "They couldn't catch me,'' he said, "but I couldn't shoot over them."

Stuart Appleby was 11-year-old kicking around his family's dairy farm in Australia. He played tennis, Australian Rules football and cricket. Golf was three years way. Fellow Aussie Robert Allenby was playing ARF, golf and cricket, but was really interested in Kiss-Chasee -- a form of hide-and-seek where the boys kissed the girls when they found them

Arron Oberholser was seven -- and a range rat -- in 1982. (WireImage)

Former U.S. Open champ Michael Campbell was at Titahi Bay High School in Wellington New Zealand playing halfback on his rugby team, while 5-year-old Charley Hoffman was playing in the sand at the beach.

Jason Bohn was 9 and admits to remembering the Pate dive, but he didn't know at the time what tournament he was watching. Yes, he played golf, but action figures were his life. "G.I. Joe was the man,'' he said with a laugh.

A few players like Kenny Perry were kicking around the mini-tours. "I had just gotten married and moved to Vero Beach (Fla), to play the J.C. Goosie Tour,'' he said. "And I was an assistant pro at Dodger Pines there..''

Defending champion Adam Scott doesn't remember much. He was 2. "But I've seen plenty of pictures of me running around naked back then,'' he said.

Ryan Moore was conceived sometime in April 1982 and born in December of that year, while Sean O'Hair's mother was in her third tri-mester. He was born July 11. D.J. Trahan was 15 months old and toddling around in diapers.

Lucas Glover and Sergio Garcia were 2 going on golf phenoms. Both of them started playing at the age of 3 -- Glover in Greenville, S.C., Garcia in Spain.

Former Masters champ Mike Weir was 12 and working on his game up in Canada. "This time of year?,'' he said. "I might have been clearing off a patch of snow and hitting some balls into Lake Huron.

Two-time U.S. Open champ Retief Goosen was 13 and getting serious about his game down in South Africa, while an Australian kid named Steve Elkington was a freshman at the University of Houston and helping UH to yet another NCAA golf title.

David Toms was a high school freshman with his eyes set on attending LSU -- "I wanted that from the time I was 5" -- and The Woodlands' Jeff Maggert was battling Dallas' Scott Verplank for everything, including the Texas 4A High School title.

Fred Funk was in his first semester as the University of Maryland golf coach. "I had just gone broke on the mini-tours,'' he said. "And I had been a temp for Manpower. I was the assistant coach and when the head coach moved to AD, I moved up."

And Jeff Sluman? He was playing on the Asian Tour. The PGA TOUR was 8 months away.

Stewart Cink (WireImage)

Vijay Singh was learning the game in Fiji, Chris DiMarco was playing quarterback/running back/linebacker as a freshman in Altamonte Springs, Rich Beem was 12 and learning the game in Panama, Phil Mickelson was in seventh grade in San Diego, Charles Howell III was 2 ½, Heath Slocum was in third grade and Kirk Triplett was a sophomore at University of Nevada.

"I was long way from the PGA TOUR,'' Triplett said.

Tom Lehman and Corey Pavin were in their last semesters of college -- at Minnesota and UCLA, respectively. Pavin was enjoying it, Lehman was "in a mad dash to finish.''

Arron Olberholser laughed that he was learning the meaning of life. He was seven and he would go putt while his mom, who was divorced, would go hit golf balls. "I think she was using the range to meet guys,'' he chuckled. And even though he'd putting, his real interest was playing soccer and being a kid.

"I didn't have very many cares back then,'' he said.

Then there's Stewart Cink who was in fourth grade and just picking up the game. And, well, he was in a little trouble.

"I was getting a paddling,'' he said. "We were walking down the stairs and I thought it would be cool to spit down the center of the stairwell. I did and it landed on another fourth grade teacher." And, yes, everyone gave him up.

And last but hardly least, we have Anthony Kim. The youngest player in the field at 21, he was three years away from being born.

"I was,'' he said chuckling, "a dream.''

You want a little more perspective? That's the same term Beman threw around when talking about the future of THE PLAYERS.