Did you know that the PGA Grand Slam of Golf occurred on Tuesday and Wednesday in Bermuda? Neither did I! The PGA Grand Slam of Golf pits the winners of the four majors in a two round tournament with $600,000 paid to the winner. This year's participants were Angel Cabrera (Masters), Lucas Glover (U.S. Open), Stewart Cink (Open Championship a/k/a the British Open), and Y.E. Yang (PGA Championship). Who? Lucas Glover, the U.S. Open Champion, played great and won at 11 under par for two rounds. All 15 fans at the event (including the players' family members) enjoyed it thoroughly. The PGA Tour is now divided into two parts, the tournaments that Tiger Woods plays and the rest of the tournaments. According to some articles, the television ratings for the standard PGA Tour events in which Tiger competes are 33% or more higher than the television ratings for those tournaments in which Tiger does not compete! This does not include the four majors, the Ryder Cup and similar big-ticket events.
Without winning a major in 2009, Tiger will win the PGA of America player of the year, the Vardon Trophy and the Byron Nelson Award, both for the lowest scoring average, the Arnold Palmer Award for winning the money title and the Jack Nicklaus Trophy for the PGA Tour player of the year. The only remaining drama (drum roll please) is whether Tiger will win the comeback player of the year award (which does not have to be awarded each year) after missing a substantial portion of the 2008 season with reconstructive knee surgery.
Jack Nicklaus had antagonists Arnie Palmer, Gary Player, Lee Trevino and Tom Watson. Tiger has Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, Paddy Harrington and Y.E. Yang. I truly believe that the depth and quality of today's PGA Tour far exceeds the Nicklaus era, but Tiger dominates like no one else. Is Tiger just so much better than Bobby Jones, Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus or is it something else? Are his competitors happy just to finish in the top 10 and take home large checks? What are your thoughts?
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I see that Tiger and Phil Mickelson have something in common - they both have Phil Mickelson as an opponent.
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