Phil Wins at Kiawah!!

I realize that we are now three days after the fact, but The Grandstander cannot let any further time pass without acknowledging the phenomenal performance by Phil Mickelson in winning the 2021 PGA Championship at the Ocean Course in Kiawah Island, SC this past weekend.  As everyone knows by now, at the age of 50 years, 11 months, Phil became the oldest golfer to ever win a Major Championship.  It was remarkable accomplishment by a popular player and was great fun to watch as Phil battled Brooks Koepka in that final pairing on Sunday.

(Little Known Facts:  The Grandstander is very much like Phil Mickelson.  I am a natural right-hander, I play golf left-handed, and I, too, am - ahem - over fifty years of age.  No wonder people are always getting us mixed up.)

This victory by Mickelson, a 3000-1 long shot who was ranked 176th in the world coming into the event, sparked comparisons to Tiger Woods' equally remarkable win at the Masters in 2019, and it reminded us all that both Woods and Mickelson will forever be linked as the greatest golfers of their generation.  One must wonder how truly staggering the wins and wins-in-majors totals for Phil would have been had he not been a playing contemporary of Woods over the last twenty-five years or so.

It is interesting that the two of them, who were never particularly close, and, in fact, may not have even liked each other all that much, have seemed to draw closer as they have aged, in  much the same way that Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus did when their glory years were behind them and they got older.  Think of Phil dressing in red and black on the Champions Tour the weekend after Woods' auto accident earlier this year, and think of Woods tweet saluting Mickelson  (and Phil's response) after the big win on Sunday.  It's kind of cool, really.

And as this Barry Svrluga column in today's Washington Post indicates, the injured and inactive Woods and the fifty year old Philly Mick are still the only gofers that really move the needle among the sporting public.

Two more comments on the PGA Championship. 

The Ocean Course is a gorgeous piece of golf property in a spectacular setting.  Wonderful to look at.  That said, I would have no desire to ever play on it.  I mean, it looks like just about the hardest golf course that I've ever seen.  I can't imagine having a bit of fun slogging through it.

The surging of the crowd onto the fairways after Mickelson and Koepka teed off on 18 can only be classified as an absolute disgrace.

"But that happens all the time at the British Open" I can hear you say, and that's true, but the Brits do it in a much more civilized manner.  What we saw on Sunday was the equivalent of drunken mobs storming a football field.  It's lucky no one was hurt (that we know of) or worse in that melee.  Say what you will about Brooks Koepka, he had every right to be thoroughly pissed off to be swallowed up in that mass while he - in theory - still could have hit shots that would have won the tournament for him.

Let's hope that the stuffed-shirts of the USGA learn from this and does NOT allow this scene to be repeated at the US Open next month.

There Is No "Next Tiger"

As all golf fans know, at the age of 21, Tiger Woods won the 1997 Masters in record-breaking fashion.  At the age of 32, he won the 2008 US Open in an 18 hole playoff while, oh yeah, playing on a broken leg.  In that span of time, forty-six of golf's major championships were contested, and Woods won fourteen of them, or 30% of them.

Nobody would have predicted that that '08 Open would have been Woods' last major championship, and while I will "never say never" where Woods is concerned, it must be conceded that with each passing year that does appear to be the case. Also with each passing year, the clamor arises as to who will be the "next Tiger".  

Time for The Grandstander to open up a spreadsheet.

	Masters	US Open	British Open	PGA
2008			Padraig Harrington	Padraig Harrington
2009	Angel Cabrera	Lucas Glover	Stewart Cink	Yang Yong-eun
2010	Phil Mickelson	Graeme McDowell	Louis Oosthuizen	Martin Kaymar
2011	Charl Schwartzel	Rory McIlroy	Darren Clarke	Keegan Bradley
2012	Bubba Watson	Webb Simpson	Ernie Els	Rory McIlroy
2013	Adam Scott	Justin Rose	Phil Mickelson	Jason Duffner
2014	Bubba Watson	Martin Kaymar	Rory McIlroy	Rory McIlroy
2015	Jordan Spieth	Jordan Spieth	Zach Johnson	Jason Day
2016	Danny Willett	Dustin Johnson

As you can see, the chart above represents each of the twenty-eight Majors played since Woods' Open win in 2008.  There have been thirty-two of them that have been spread out among twenty-two different winning players.  Six of them - Padraig Harrington, Phil Mickelson, Martin Kaymar, Rory McIlroy, Bubba Watson, and Jordan Spieth - have been multiple winners, with McIlroy winning four of them, and each of the others winning twice.

McIlroy was the first obvious Next Tiger candidate, winning four majors in the span of four years, but he hasn't won since, and when he has been in contention after three rounds, he has spit the bit and not been close, often fading dramatically, as he did in this past Masters. Jordan Spieth appears to be the next most obvious candidate.  He has won twice in the last six tries and has been in contention in five of them.  Others like Jason Day and Dustin Johnson appear to be on the verge of superstardom, Day, in fact, is already there.  All four of those guys are young enough to be factors in and winners of Majors for years to come, but do you really think that they will accomplish what Woods did over a twelve year span of competing in Majors?  Again, "never say never", but I certainly wouldn't bet on it.

Two of the names on the chart above, Ernie Els and Mickelson, won additional Majors outside of the time frame of the chart.  Phil won five of them, Ernie won four.  Mickelson is undoubtedly the single greatest "other" golfer of the Woods Era, and Els is certainly in that same discussion, but they finish far down the track from Tiger when the tally of Majors is viewed.  In fact, going back to a point made in the prior paragraph, I'd say it's a good chance that neither McIlroy nor Spieth will surpass Mickelson's career total of five majors.

The point, if there is one, is that it is extremely hard to win a professional golf tournament.  You have to be better than over 140 other players over a four day period of time.  You have no team mates to block for you, get on base in front of you, or to set you up and feed you that ball or the puck. Sometimes you might get lucky, like Yang Yong-eun did back in 2009 (I mean, do you remember that he won the PGA that year, and have you ever heard of him since?), and there are some other One Hit Wonders that come along (Lucas Glover, Keegan Bradley)  It is real crucible out there, and with each passing year of Tiger not winning, his accomplishments in that twelve year span become more and more remarkable.

My conclusion - there is no "next Tiger", and if there is, I will be a very, very old man when I see him (and I'm old now!).

One final point for this little bar room argument.  Jack Nicklaus won 18 majors beginning with the 1962 US Open and ending with the 1986 Masters.  That was a total of 92 Majors during that span.  Jack's winning percentage was 20%, compared to Tiger's 30%.  If you tell me that Nicklaus was the greatest golfer of all time, I won't argue with you, and I would probably agree with you, but if you tell me that he was more dominant that Woods during their times on Golf's main stage, I might argue with you, although I would also grant you that Nicklaus nineteen second place finishes in Majors are a huge point in Jack's favor.

Just a little something to think over as we await the The Open Championship next month.