Thursday, September 24, 2009

FEDEX Championship

Tiger started out slowly today and made the turn at even par but was 3 under for the day, tied for second place. I am going to go out on a limb and say that the tournament is over. The only time the field seems to have a chance against Tiger is when he is bored on Thursday and lets the field get too far out in front. Tiger and I both have the same problem, a balky driver. He only hit 6 of 14 fairways, but he hit 13 of 18 greens. Phil Mickelson, the pride of Arizona State University, imploded on No. 14 with a snowman! Phil has as much talent as, and more creativity than, any other player (including Tiger), but he is constantly shooting himself in the foot.

Before the Tour Championship, the pundits were talking about the PGA Tour's player of the year award and there was some discussion that the player that wins the FEDEX Cup should be the player of the year. I would agree with that so long as Tiger wins the FEDEX Cup! Tiger has already won 6 PGA tour events in 2009 in only 16 starts after coming back from major knee surgery. The only other multiple winners so far this year are Steve Stricker (2),Y.E. Yang (2, including the PGA comeback to beat Tiger), Zach Johnson (2), Geoff Ogilvy (2, including the Accenture Match Play Championship and the Mercedes Benz Championship), Kenny Perry (2), Brian Gay (2) and Phil Mickelson (2). Tiger did not win a major this year. The major winners were Masters - Angel Cabrero; U.S. Open - Lucas Glover; The Open Championship - Stewart Cink; and the PGA Championship - Y.E. Yang. Tiger's stroke average is more than 1 stroke lower than his closest competitor and he is a shoe-in to win the Vardon Trophy. I don't know if the PGA Tour has a comeback player of the year award, but if it does Tiger should win that as well! For anyone other than Tiger, this would be a career year, or possibly even a career. For example, Stewart Cink is a pretty good player. He has 6 career victories in 353 events! The only PGA Tour player that would not vote for Tiger Woods as PGA Tour Player of the Year is Tiger himself because he did not meet his own expectations.

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