The Curse of Speculation

No alcohol, no warrants, no criminal charges and no real explanation. That's where we find ourselves in the Tiger Woods accident saga. Not to be rude, but if this was a pop star of some sort who had seemingly just made a sober mistake here's what would have happened; the coverage would have been about thirty seconds on Friday morning on the local networks and the laugh-off public opinion that this pop star just isn't that bright. Tiger, however, is no dummy and up to this point doesn't make mistakes beyond missing a green from under a 100 yards.
It's the lack of a real explanation that has predictably fueled the media's speculative fire. I was watching The Sports Reporters on ESPN yesterday morning and the feeling I got from the panel was that until Tiger explained what happened in great detail everyone, including the panel, would assume the worst. Look, there's no crime here as far as we've been told so what's the big deal? So what if he got in a tiff with his wife? At least he decided to bolt rather than smack her around with his golf muscles right? I mean, he has flown off the handle before:

So what if he was going to pick up Steve Williams because the caddy was too drunk again and the bars closed at two? Lord knows Stevie has had a problem or two crashing cars:


So what if he was in too much of a hurry to get to Wal-Mart for amazing Black Friday deals? Leave Tiger Alone!

I joke because this is a joke. Ever think that maybe he hasn't yet spent the time with the police or released a detailed statement may have to do with the fact that this really isn't a big deal, just a dumb mistake? I made a mistake in a car once and hit a tree coming out of a friend's driveway because I let myself get distracted. It was the hardest thing I ever had to own up to because of the sheer stupidity of it. Priding yourself on doing everything right makes it harder to come clean about doing something so innocently dumb. Maybe I'm wrong and the roof is about to blow off the biggest sports conspiracy since the Black Sox. Maybe not.

Tiger's Best of 2009

His final round at The Memorial this year could have been the video but sadly overlooked. You know you're good when the entire Tour gets an annual "best shots" video and you get your own.

Some of the Best Shots of 2009

The Winners Of '09

Tiger's Driver Issues

I know the driver sometimes gets away from Tiger, but as a driver, no problem 'til now. At 2:25 Friday morning Tiger couldn't get out of his own driveway, plowing into a fire hydrant. In another bit of irony he needed his super model wife to use one of his golf clubs to smash in a windshield and get him out of the hazard. I guess he needs Steve Williams riding shotgun giving the yardage to obstructions.

What was he doing? Does the first billion dollar athlete need to save a few bucks on Black Friday deals? No confirmation yet on what actually happened and why it happened sooooo close to home in the wee hours of the morning. Stay tuned on your newly bought $249 flat screens and $149 laptops.

Top Ten of The Opening Ten

The opening golf decade of the new millennium has effectively come to an end. Ten years of major championships, highlights, low-lights and knee surgeries, oh my! The analysts and experts (of which I humbly consider myself both) will no doubt derive lists of the best shots, tournaments, etc. of the past decade. Let's face it, if we aren't force ranking that which is strictly opinion we're memorizing stats to help back-up those opinions. We are really fun at parties.

With that in mind it is out of sheer obligation (yeah right) that I build my own list of the decade. What I have chosen to do is force rank the years themselves. As a fan first of the PGA Tour I want to be entertained and marvel at the skills of the best in the world. Some years provide more entertainment and historical significance than others, but any decade that sees one player win 12 majors has a bunch to offer. As you'll find in the list, the years of this decade all had an upside and not a one was really all that bad. But, force ranking is force ranking so here they are ranked from 10(least best) to 1(best cuz I said so), the PGA Tour seasons of the primordial decade of millennium.

10. 2003 - Not To Be For Stephen Leaney. Sorry 2K3, but you get the short end of the stick. The majors were for the most part a bust, with Jim Furyk headlining the eventual champions with his lone major victory, the U.S. Open at Olympia Fields. Don't get me wrong, Furyk is no slouch, or tremendous slouch for that matter. The problem was that Furyk took a three stroke lead into the final day over Stephen Leaney (don't worry, I couldn't pick Stephen Leaney out of a line-up either), shot two-over par on Sunday and still won by the same three strokes over Leaney. The T-3 of Mike Weir (along with Kenny Perry) may have boded well for the '03 Master's champ except that he finished seven strokes off the lead despite Furyk's over par finish. Weir's Masters win would have been pretty meaningful as it came via playoff, but it was a pretty lousy playoff against unheralded Len Mattiace. Ben Curtis and Shaun Micheel did little to add to the majors' lack of luster in '03. Micheel tried to liven things up with his unbelievable approach to the final hole at the PGA Championship, but it turned out to be unnecessary as he would eventually not need the closing birdie and win by two.
2003 Also saw the first of two consecutive years in which Tiger Woods did not win a major. A swing hitch forced us to watch Woods resort to a pull-cut off the tee just to keep the ball in play. Of course Woods played well enough to win five times because he's that good, but he certainly didn't do much more than inspire hackers everywhere to just aim farther left to play their slice.
Poor old 2003 couldn't even escape team play scrutiny. The best President's Cup play to date ended in a tie due to darkness. A tie! Look 2003, if you can't even pick a winner you end up losing, which you did.

9. 2009 - Almost. Appropriately #9 for '09. The reason this year ends up in the penultimate spot is because it was so close to being tremendous and yet so far away. Tiger was returning after eight months out of the game, The U.S. Open was returning to Bethpage Black and Phil Mickelson opened with two early wins. Then the coulda-woulda-shoulda train ran right over the entire season. Kenny Perry shoulda won the Masters but folded; Phil and David Duval coulda won the ugliest, most rain soaked U.S. Open ever but didn't; if not for one enormously bad bounce Tom Watson woulda won the British Open at almost 60 years old; And Tiger did the unthinkable and coughed up a 54-hole lead in a major to Y.E. Yang. Compounding the problem was what coulda been for Mickelson in '09 but he left for extended periods to tend to his wife and mother who BOTH were diagnosed with breast cancer.
On the plus side for 2009 was the way it finished. Tiger and Phil went one-two in the FedEx Cup and any season that Tiger wins 7 times and Phil 4 can't be all bad. The Tour Championship and recent HSBC Champions showed Lefty that he could topple Woods heads-up even when the world #1 is playing well. A President's Cup that turned out to be entertaining for the most part helped 2009 too. Also, special mention to Stewart Cink who closed like a true champion at the British Open despite having to almost reluctantly take the Claret Jug from Watson.

8. 2001 - Things Were Going So Well. Let's face it, the 9/11 attacks push '01 towards the back of any list looking for the best of the best. Up until 9/11 the golf season had been pretty solid. Tiger Woods had completed the Tiger Slam, winning the Masters by two over David Duval.  Duval would later claim his first major title at the '01 British Open, seeming to set the stage for years of this 1 vs. 2 battle. Of course the careers of Woods and Duval went in completely opposite directions from there. David Toms edged out Phil Mickelson at the PGA Championship, Toms carding a hole-in-one during the tournament.
On the downside for '01 Retief Goosen almost threw away the U.S. Open at Southern Hills. He eventually recovered and beat Mark Brooks in a Monday playoff. The U.S. Open Monday playoff system is the most annoying way to determine a major in my opinion because I have a job. So Goosen choking an easy putt on the last to win outright was annoying in overdrive.
The real golf tragedy of 2001 was the postponing of the Ryder Cup in the wake of the attacks. My favorite event in all of golf, a biannual one at that, postponed for one year. Understandably an event played in September, with world class players crossing an ocean by plane in red alert times seemed risky at best. I still think, however, it would have been a 3-iron length middle finger at the terrorists to play an international event in the highest spirit of global camaraderie and fair play.

7. 2006 - Calamity At Winged Foot. Phil Mickelson won The Masters for the second time, making two straight major wins for Lefty. Tiger won both the British and the PGA Championship, finishing the season with six consecutive wins in as many starts. All good things right? So why the low ranking? The big story of '06 was not any of the wins, but rather the monstrous loss Phil Mickelson suffered at the U.S. Open...again. Returning for another "massacre" at Winged Foot, the +5 winning score proved this course is one of the great beasts in golf. It was the players who finished +6, though, that were the story. Colin "Monty" Montgomerie coughed up another golden opportunity at a major, but no choke was greater than Phil's. That his caddy Bones didn't snap the driver over Phil's head when he asked for it on the final hole is one of the great mysteries of the decade. That Bones didn't also stand directly in front of Mickelson until he decided to simply punch out rather than to try and play around the massive trees he had sliced the previously mentioned tee shot into is unsolved mystery two. Completing it's own episode of "Unsolved Mysteries" is why Bones let Mickelson yet again try and pull off a miraculous shot after pasting the first effort off of one of the massive trees he had driven the previously mentioned tee shot into. All of this ended with the most gut-twisting post tournament comment ever, "I am such an idiot." Watch the idiocy here.
Not helping 2006's rep was the 18 1/2 to 9 1/2 drubbing the U.S. took in the Ryder Cup. I don't mind losing as long as the the losing is done well. This was over before it started.

6. 2007 - 2007: A Golf Oddity. This was a really strange year if you think about it. There were three first time major winners, two of whom outplayed Tiger of all people on a Sunday; Zach Johnson at the Masters and Angel Cabrera the U.S. Open at Oakmont. Woods couldn't grab either event in a year when he won seven times and had a ridiculous 67.78 scoring average. Beyond the oddity of outplaying Woods at the Masters was Johnson's winning total of +1; a solid score at the U.S. Open, but the Masters usually yields a winner comfortably under par. Tiger, meanwhile, did win a major in '07, the PGA Championship, but true to '07 head scratching it was at that year's major venue he was least likely to conquer, Southern Hills. A second round 63 was the round of the year for sure, and the tournament was his from that point on.
Padraig Harrington was the third first-time major winner, breaking through at the British Open at Carnoustie. The strange part about it was that although he didn't pull a Jean Van De Velde on the closing hole, Harrington did make a mess of the 18th and yet still found himself in a playoff against Sergio Garcia. Padraig eventually won the playoff and The Open (duh, I already told you that) and then in the post tournament interviews basically said he didn't really think he won the event and pretty much didn't deserve it. Uh Paddy, if you feel that strongly about it I could use a featured mantel piece at home and a Claret Jug would be nicely I think, seeing as how you don't really want it and all.
Stranger still for '07 was Steve Stricker's Comeback Player of the Year award. What makes this accolade so odd is this was the second year in a row that Stricker took home the award. How do you "comeback" two seasons in a row? Did he win the first one because no one really deserved it and he seemed on the verge of a comeback? Weird.

5. 2005 - Halfway Home. No surprise to find the half point of decade locate the same spot on our list. '05 was a big year for a few reasons. For starters Tiger Woods almost won three majors. He came up just shy at the U.S. Open held at Pinehurst No.2, won by Michael Campbell. Campbell, it is interesting to note, finished T-4 and T-6 respectively in the following two majors making for a tremendous year for New Zealand's finest (yes Steve Williams, New Zealand's finest). Back to Woods though, he dominated once again at the Old Course at St. Andrews and won a terrific Masters in a playoff with Chris DiMarco, highlighted by this shot you may have seen before: Looking to still possibly claim three majors in '05, Tiger held the lead at one point late in the PGA Championship. It was that particular PGA Championship where Phil Mickelson validated his first Masters win of the year before. As it turned out Phil would win the Masters to open the major season of 2006, demolishing any notion that the major monkey may still be renting space on his back. Appropriately it was a clutch short game shot that sealed the tournament for Mickelson.

4. 2008 - A Tale of Two Seasons. The first half of 2008 was a Tiger, Tiger, Tiger, Tiger, Tiger. Woods began the year by winning five times in five starts. The talk about a possible Grand Slam was in the air. The major courses favored Woods' game, including Torrey Pines where Tiger is essentially undefeated. Then Tiger started looking a bit shaky at the Masters, as if Carl Spackler had "cut the hamstring on his leg" and Woods couldn't get through anything. Even with a lackluster performance Woods still finished solo second at the Masters, but the dream of a Grand Slam was left to the menu at Denny's. Then all we could talk about was "the knee". In a ton of pain Tiger still decided to play the U.S. Open. He hobbled around Torrey Pines and during the third round provided one of the greatest back nines in major championship golf history. One memorable putt and 37 holes later Woods had claimed the U.S. Open despite a monumental effort from Rocco Mediate.
The entire year turned when Woods announced he was going to need surgery and his season was over. It was at this point that the extent of Tiger's injury was revealed and we found out that he had just won the U.S. Open on, for all intents and purposes, a broken leg.
The second half of '08 belonged essentially to Padraig Harrington. He repeated as British Open champion and then once again out-dueled Sergio Garcia and claimed the PGA Championship. Any year that has a two-time major winner is pretty special. It is only that Woods was unable to compete during the second half, however, that kept this from being a much higher ranked year.
Not to be forgotten is the Ryder Cup victory for the United States in Kentucky. The little team that could, did, giving Paul Azinger a new legacy and justifying Kenny Perry's bailing on two major championships to claim easy team ranking points. The catch-22 of the event again had to do with Tiger's inability to compete and a U.S. win without him. Was he holding the U.S. back in team play during the previous few debacles? Just the way it went in '08, as many questions as answers, but a ton of fun regardless.

3. 2004 - Exhale. So 2004 is remembered for one moment over any other, but in hindsight this was a huge year. The moment I speak of is of course Phil Mickelson's lame jump at the Masters as he exorcised the demons of majors past. A monumental duel unfolded between Mickelson and Ernie Els with Lefty finally, finally, making the shots and putts necessary to win one of those pesky majors. The sigh of relief was collectively released by golf fandom. He wasn't the best player without a major anymore, he wasn't cursed by winning the week prior, he wasn't a fool for putting two drivers in the bag, and he wouldn't be such an idiot for two more years. For the longest time it looked as though Phil would ride the momentum of the win and claim the U.S. Open at Shinnecock. Sadly it wasn't to be thanks to a putting clinic put on by Retief Goosen, who clinched his second U.S. open title, and Phil was yet again left wanting at our national championship. 
The other key figure in 2004 was Vijay Singh. I'm not sure he will ever get the credit he deserves but Vijay Singh put together one of the greatest seasons in the history of the game. He won nine times. Nine times! One of the wins came in Wisconsin as the world was introduced to a magnificent golf course in Whistling Straits. Singh held off Justin Leonard and Chris DiMarco for his second PGA championship. The most impressive of Singh's 2004 achievements was the unseating of Tiger Woods as the #1 ranked player in the world. Not only did Singh claim the spot, but did so by beating Woods heads-up at the Deutsche Bank Championship. No one in the Tiger era has had that kind of opportunity and taken advantage of it so fully as Singh did in '04.

2. 2002 - National Pride. The third year of the decade gets the number 2 spot for, appropriately enough, for two big reasons. The first being the biggest names claiming the biggest tournaments save one. Tiger Woods once again was a heartbeat away from winning three majors in a calender year. If not for Rich Beem playing spoiler at Hazeltine during a week when Tiger hit what he calls the best shot of his career, Woods would have taken home three biggies. Beyond Woods, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh and Ernie Els each won twice on Tour and those four huge names were the top four in scoring average. At the end of the Masters the l thru 8 spots read Tiger Woods, Retief Goosen, Phil Mickelson, Jose Maria Olazabal, Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington, Vijay Singh and Sergio Garcia. This was a good time to be watching golf.
The second part of the '02 story lay in Bethpage State Park and the Black Course. The tournament ended with Tiger taking home a three stroke victory, but the tournament was so much better than the final leaderboard may lead you to believe. For starters this was the people's tournament. It never felt more like a championship of the United States than at Bethpage and that's a credit to the course, but mostly to the fans in attendance. The noise was epic, the spirit genuine, the pride untethered. The sound that exploded out of the gallery when Phil Mickelson's putt fell on the 17th hole Saturday shook the satellite sending the signal to the rest of us watching from home. The impact of Bethpage Black was so profound that it was immediately locked in to host the U.S. Open in 2009. When a course captures the imagination of the golf world seemingly out of nowhere you have to give it it's due.

1. 2000 - The Year Of The Tiger. After "restructuring" his swing Tiger Woods kicked off the new millenium by quite simply setting the bar for it. Like the season Vijay Singh would four years later, Woods won nine times in 2000. Unlike the season Vijay had in 2004, Woods won not one, but three majors in 2000. Ironically it was Vijay Singh who claimed the only other major that year, The Masters. However, once the Tour stopped in Pebble Beach for the U.S. Open it was nighty night. Pebble Beach yielded one under par score for 72 holes that week. The score was a 12-under par 272 brought in by Tiger. The next closest scores were two 3-over pars carded by Ernie Els and Miguel Angel Jimenez. By the third round Tiger was literally playing his own game, trying to stay bogey free as a way to keep focused. Woods accomplished the bogey free goal on Sunday, just for kicks. We may never again see someone not only get the better of the field but the course as well in such dominating fashion.
A quick stop to the history's darling, The Old Course in St. Andrews, for a ho-hum eight shot win and Tiger picked up major number two on the year. It all lead to the PGA Championship at Valhalla. What happened there was the greatest major championship I have ever seen (keep in mind I was born in '78, so sorry Turnberry '77). It started on Friday when Jack Nicklaus, playing alongside Woods, needed an eagle on the last hole just to make the cut. With a wedge The Golden Bear spun his shot back to within a breath of falling in, showing the determination and skill that made him the greatest...so far. Tiger took a one-shot lead over unknown Bob May heading into Sunday. May was to be dispatched with ease and the trifecta complete. By the turn Sunday, however, May had drawn even with Woods and it was game on. For the next nine holes the pair treated us to...well here just watch (I tried to cue this up and failed, start at 7:45):


So there you have it folks. Did I get it right? Tell me what you think.

Tiger Hoists Number Seven

This just in; Tiger Woods is good. Doing what he does, Tiger claimed a two shot win in Australia, his seventh victory of the year. After being named Player of the Year for the millionth time (and congrats on that) Tiger "verified" the award by winning the Australian Masters. The field lacked the fire power of the previous week but a win is a win is a win.

2K10 Preview: The Els Factor

At the end of the HSBC Champions many a golf fan got exactly what they wanted. Phil Mickelson had staved off the world's best in the final group and set visions sweeter than sugar plums dancing in our heads. Could someone finally go toe-to-toe (not off the club face of course) with Tiger, with consistency, on the largest stages? Will 2010 be the greatest season of golf ever? It's impossible not to wonder or even hope for that matter. However, as you'll see in the highlights of the final day's play an added bonus emerged in the 2010 speculation; Ernie Els may be back.



Very quietly The Big Easy has begun to return to form. He first tantalized us by factoring for much of the PGA Championship, eventually ending up in a tie for sixth. Showing it wasn't a flash in the pan performance he was only bested by Health Slocum's final 25ft birdie putt at the Barclay's during the FedEx Playoffs. That may have been the greatest T-2 of all-time as it included Tiger, Padraig Harrington and Steve Stricker along with Ernie....That's 20 major championship wins in the runner-up spot! With this latest runner-up, and a closing 63, Els has hopefully thrown his name in the 2010 hat. No one has had more high quality head-to-head duels with Tiger as Ernie and for what we are hoping out of the next golf calender year the more major champions the merrier.

Golf 2K10 Preview?

So the WGC-HSBC (wow that's a lot of initials) Champions is being treated to what I hope is a preview of next year's season; Woods and Mickelson, Tiger and Lefty. A third round 67 gives Phil a two stroke lead over Tiger and Nick Watney, and the three will be paired together Sunday. With the way the FedEx Cup series ended, we in the peanut gallery starting dreaming the ultimate dream that 2010 would give us Tiger v. Phil on a regular basis. Seeing as how the Tour Championship was almost two months ago and here they are again I don't want to jinx it but, man this could be AWESOME!

The last time the two were in the same final round pairing was this year's Masters. Phil got the better of Tiger that day and almost pulled off the greatest come from behind major win of all time. Actually, when the two were in contention in Mickelson's shortened '09 Phil got the better of Woods more often then not. Lefty also outplayed Woods at the U.S. Open and grabbed the aforementioned Tour Championship as well. It's this viewpoint that makes me dare to dream that 2010 may see the Woods/Mickelson "rivalry" actually play itself out.

Does Tiger Woods Love Golf?

The question was posed to me not too long ago by a beginning golfer; "Does Tiger Woods still love to play golf?" I was ready with a quick answer, but almost as quickly realized the question required some deeper thought. What does it really mean to love golf, or any game for that matter? Is it the competition or the game itself? If it's the competition you thrive on and seek out any game will do. If it's the love of the game you would pay to play, rather than be paid to play, just like everyone else. Let's say that in Tim Finchem's worst wet-the-bed nightmare Tiger retired from competitive golf tomorrow; Does Tiger play golf in his retirement? Does he have a Saturday morning net skins game with Michael Jordan? Obviously you would have to think the workout and practice regiments would decrease dramatically in an early retirement, but would Tiger still play regularly just to play?

The really intriguing part of the initial question is how Tiger has approached golf his entire life. His father injected him with a prediction that he would become the greatest golfer who ever lived. Not a small thing to have to live up to. Then Tiger himself started to absorb the history and records he wanted to surpass in order to become the greatest player to ever live. All of this made golf Tiger's job before he ever made a dime on the course. Did aiming that high that early sap all the fun out of the game? Or is the only way to immerse oneself so fully rooted in an unquenchable love for the game? Personally, I tend to answer yes to the latter question. From my own experience, just trying to find a way to play golf for a living, when I wasn't working at the golf course I was practicing at the range or playing 36-holes, or both if the day afforded the time. I practiced in the rain (although the valley in Arizona didn't force that issue too often) and 115+ heat (which the valley forced the issue on a plenty). In the end I made just enough money to go broke, but loved every second of the journey and never had so much fun.

Tiger doesn't have to put himself through the daily practice and fitness regiment, but he does. Why? Because he wants to be better than he was yesterday. That's the addiction of golf. From the first time you hit it on the screws to the first time you break 100, 90, 80 or 70, the addiction takes hold. You love the game because it forces you to work harder even when you played your best, because there was always something you could have done better. I have to think it's all relative when it comes to Tiger. That he has to win more often than anyone else, and has to practice that hard to win is not because he is so goal oriented. I would hope that all his effort is not invested in a game he has become indifferent about or even dislikes simply to accomplish those goals. It's because he loves the game and wants to get better just like Johnny Hacks-a-lot at your local club.

So I give the same answer I gave my beginner friend, yes I think Tiger Woods still loves to play golf. Do you think Tiger still loves to play golf?

This Ain't Your Dad's Country Club No More

Yesterday Jason Sobel, ESPN Golf columnist and blogger, offered this article about the PGA Tour's lack of rivalry and gives these reasons as to why:

"Chalk this up to three reasons: Deeper fields, in which seemingly every player has a chance to contend on any given week; very few match play tournaments on the annual schedule, relegating the number of head-to-head instances; and gentlemanly players, many of whom would rather call a penalty against themselves than cause a mini-firestorm by pointing out the faux pas of a playing partner."

For the most part I would agree, especially as it concerns the deeper fields. As a club pro I annually help setup, officiate and score a Club Championship. If you've ever belonged to a Country Club or worked for one you know that year in and year out there is a favorite to win both the men's and ladie's championships and one, maybe two, threats to the throne. This is regardless of stroke or match play as the format. The PGA Tour used to be this way. There was plenty of talent, but two or three guys that were head and shoulders above the rest when it counted. The great triumvirates of Nicklaus, Palmer, Player or Nicklaus, Watson, Trevino are gone. With the strengthening of junior instructional programs and opportunities to compete at younger ages the amount of world class talent has increased and turned triumvirates into thirty-somethings. It's like taking an entire professional sports league and trying to justify all the teams as equal rivals.
It doesn't bother me in the least that the most entertaining major championship of my lifetime was the 2000 PGA. It makes no difference to me that it was Bob May that pushed Tiger to a playoff that year. The reason being that both players made shot after shot, birdie after birdie and scripted a major championship Sunday for the ages. It's the quality of the golf that makes the difference, not who's name is attached to it. That this year's PGA was so disappointing is not because Y.E. Yang eventually out-dueled Tiger, it's that they never really dueled. Tiger played such lackluster golf on Sunday that Yang couldn't help but win. They didn't push each other to greatness. The point is that the elite are in greater abundance and as such may only get a chance or two at a major in a career, and maybe never a chance to square off with Tiger, where the real rivalry claims can be made.
That the cup runneth over with talent is not a problem for professional golf, at least it shouldn't be. If anything it's a testament to just how good the game really is these days.