Padraig Harrington is a very nice man. If niceness were handicapped, he'd be about a plus-6.
He also won two major championships this year, which secured his eventual spot in the Hall of Fame and reconfirmed his place among the handful of best players in the world even if he did fizzle at the Ryder Cup.
The point of this is to exorcise a wee bit of guilt I feel about not voting for Harrington as the PGA Tour's player of the year.
But Tiger Woods wins again.
I know he played just six PGA Tour events but that was enough.
Tiger won four times, finished second once and fifth in the other event.
Remember the bomb he made on the 72nd hole to win Bay Hill?
And how about the way he came back to beat J.B. Holmes in the Match Play Championship?
Those are career memories for most guys but for Tiger they amounted to window dressing this year when compared to his victory in the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.
Years from now, decades from now, in fact, people will talk about how Woods won the Open while essentially playing on one leg. He did it on guts and will and with whatever that special thing is he possesses that makes him different from everyone else.
He called it his most meaningful major championship victory and Tiger isn't one to brag.
Harrington may win player of the year and it will be justified.
Vijay Singh locked down the FedEx Cup playoffs to end a good year and Camilo Villegas finally broke through. They had special seasons but, as they've heard before, they weren't Tiger.
There's only one Tiger.
When you can beat the best in the world in the U.S. Open on one leg, you've answered all the questions.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Tiger Woods is POY -- in 6 starts
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5 comments:
GREAT article. I agree on all points. Fifteen years down the road we will all still be talking of how Tiger did on one leg what most professionals cannot do their entire career.
Ron come on man !!!! Not only did Harrington win 2 majors but they were back to back and he has won 3 of the last 6. Harrington gets it simply because his year was better.
In the Tiger Woods era of golf every tournament that is won without Tiger Woods in the field should have an asterisk....and even though that will never happen writers will talk about them as if they do.
I don’t know! Yes, what Tiger did was incredible and yes,we might not enjoy a better run of six tournaments by any other player that comes close to matching Tiger’s feat. But to be honest, Harrington’s achievement is far bigger because there is no way you can discount wins in two successive majors specially when one of them involves defending the Claret Jug. Harrington has undoubtedly emerged as the man to watch out far and it would do grave injustice to him not to call him player of the year. That is the reason Tiger voted for him and rightly so.
But having said all that, I am really looking forward to how he performs once he returns to the tour. One has to see whether his knee surgery will have had any impact on his game because at this stage of his career if he can play the way he did with a rapidly degenerating knee then a fully fit Tiger is a scary prospect!
Play Well
Cheers
Andy Brown
GolfSwingSecretsRevealed.com/blog
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