Pro Golf's Young Guns Are Shooting Blanks

The 2009 pro golf season (mercifully) officially ended this past weekend, with the Tour Championship in Georgia. On the course where Bobby Jones learned to play golf, East Lake, Tiger Woods won the controversial FedEx Cup, and Phil Mickelson won the tournament. Tiger took home $10 million and salvaged a season in which he didn't win a major championship. Mickelson ended an annus horribilis, in which both his wife and mother battled breast cancer, on a very upbeat and inspirational note. He made a few million less than Woods.

The PGA Tour was practically orgasmic over the outcome. Tiger, Phil, together, hoisting trophies, together! The photogenic, telegenic finish concluded the third year of the FedEx Cup, a yearlong points competition that concludes with a playoff series after the PGA Championships. It's one of the stupidest ideas ever inflicted on professional sports and the sport-loving public, an incomprehensible mash of points-earning and points resetting and players weary from an already overlong golf season. It has to face off against the beginning of the NFL season and the end of the MLB season. But, at least this year, the Tiger-Phil finish made the final event worth watching.

Of course, it also highlighted a serious problem with the men's pro tour. Namely, the absence of younger players from contention. Riddle me this: Who's won a major lately besides Phil or Tiger? Well, a lot of guys. There was Stewart Cink at the 2009 British Open, and of course Padraig Harrington's two British Opens and a PGA, and an Asian player no one has ever heard of, Y.E. Yang, nipped Tiger at the 2009 PGA, becoming a hero in the Pacific Rim in the process. Let's see, who else... No, Sergio Garcia hasn't won anything big. Anthony Kim hasn't won anything big. Camilo Villegas? No. Adam Scott? Um, no. Lucus Glover, winner of the 2009 US Open? Not really so young anymore.

I could go on, but most of the big tournaments over the past decade or so have been won by Woods, Mickelson, and either Ernie Els, Retief Gosen, or Harrington. All players who are now in their thirties, some even pushing forty. The younger generation just can't seem to make a dent, can't seem to break through on the grand stage. Garcia came close a few years back when he missed a winning par putt at the British Open, but since then he's been pretty cold.

The result of all this is that the PGA Tour is utterly reliant on Woods and Mickelson, the only two heavyweights who seem to be able to make stuff happen in big events on the weekend. Angel Cabrera, an ebullient Argentine, captured the Masters this year, dashing the hopes of an old gun, the nearing-fifty Kenny Perry. But action everyone wanted to watch came from the Woods-Mickelson pairing, and in particular from Mickelson, who shot a 30 on Augusta National's front nine on Sunday. Mickelson later threatened at the US Open.

Commentators keep asking when a young player is going to step up to challenge Woods, who has dominated the game since the late 1990s. Given the dismal performance of the young guns so far, that isn't going to happen. Something has gone very wrong in the competitive apprenticeship that is big time golf. We have the Big Two, Tiger and Phil, and then a constantly rotating cast of wannabes and one-off winners. And Harrington, an indomitable Irishman. Oh, and guys who are effectively retired, like Greg Norman, and on the senior tour, like Tom Watson, vying for the British Open the past two years.

What's gone wrong is money. In the Palmer-Nicklaus-Watson-Player-Trevino-Miller eras, you had to finish well and win big tournaments in order to become a successful professional athlete. Now, a journeyman PGA Tour pro can never win, never post top tens, and still make a few million a year. Woods of course makes more money than anybody, but he seems to not care--he's entirely focused on winning majors. Mickelson started out as the greatest moneymaking machine ever--he could almost decide that he was just going to out-birdie a field and win an event--but that held him back from winning majors, so he changed.

Luckily, the financial crisis has arrived just in time to clobber golf's oligarchical sponsors and threaten to roll the clock back to a time when purses were smaller. Equipment makers have also taken a hit, so it's tougher for players to make a go of it on endorsements and off-the-course money. Eventually, somebody will come along who's in it to beat Tiger, to beat Phil, and not but a new Ferrari ever other month. Then we'll see some young guns who aren't shooting blanks.

Follow Matthew DeBord on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mattdebord

Comments

[writerjohnny]

Golf makes for great television no matter who is winning or playing. If you want to take an afternoon nap. Those long video shots of men standing or stooping and looking at a hole from every angle are scintillating. And don't forget the "walking to the next shot" shot. But what really spins me off into a wonderful nap zone are the commentators whispering incessantly about "the break". "It's not going to do much is it Roger?" "No John. It might be a little inside left". Golf was invented because Scotland is the most boring place on the planet and ANYTHING was better than just sitting around and looking at Mulls.

[SethBLiNK]

It seems to me that the biggest emergence in golf over the past couple of years has been older golfers. Last year, Rocco Mediate who never contended in a major before pushed Tiger to a sudden death playoff in the US Open at the age of 45.

This year Kenny Perry, who won three Tournaments before his 40th Birthday and 11 since came very close at the Masters. And then Greg Norman at 54 and Tom Watson at 59 came really close.

This is a remarkable development. The oldest guy ever to win a major was Julius Boros at 48, and he had won two times previous. Nicklaus is next at 46 and he was Nicklaus. Hale Irwin and Raymond Floyd were up there too and they were winning their third and fourth majors.

When you have guys at 45 and 49 vying for their first major win, and guys at 54 and 59 vying too and all of it happening in the same year, that's a strong trend.

And they're doing it at a time when courses are getting noticibly longer which would seem to favor the younger players who tend to be longer. My best guess is that equipment advances are allowing these guys to stay competitive and maybe fitness regimens, but I'm just guessing.

[bioluminescence]

I'm not sure I agree with the notion the heir apparent have vanished from the scene. I think they're there. But because they lack pizzazz and charisma, we don't pay much attention to them.

The most colorful golfer to almost unseat a golfing elite was Rocko Mediate at Torrey Pines in the U. S. Open. But Mediate is almost a one of a kind these days on tour. In the 90s and 2000s, golf produced almost no players with a unique, aggressive style. Mahan, Glover, O'Hair, Weir are good golfers. But you'd never watch them because of their colorful characters. Mike Reid (radar) seemed like an accountant; Tom Kite seemed like a teenager out of place. But they had style.

The 60s and 70s produced colorful characters. Guys like Trevino, Thorpe, Rodriquez. They might not always win. But they'd be in contention. And they would put on a show.

So I would say the second tier is there. You just don't pay much attention to them.

[woundedduck]

Blame Nike.

[wydgage]

nice article, Matt...and a good, solid argument. my thoughts on the PGA tour are much the same as the ones i have about the NFL and MLB: i would never pay money to see the regular PGA tour events in the same way i wouldn't pay the outrageous and inflated prices to see an NFL or MLB game. for my money, i'd much rather see minor league baseball where the players are just scraping by and not support the obscene salaries of those at the top in football, baseball, and basketball.

i watch the PGA tour for the entertainment value and for the mesmerizing genius of Tiger but i enjoy more watching the Nationwide Tour events on Golf Channel just as i prefer to see minor league baseball games. these players are the future of golf and to follow their progress as they move to "the big league" is really something to see. it's their ticket to the PGA tour and one of them will be the future icon of golf.

[GunnyJ]

Golf, like you mentioned in your article is made for the hanger-on. In others Pro-sports you may hang artound for a couple of years, but eventually the lack of talent prevails and your career is over. Even in tennis, to make good money you have to consistently get to the quarter finals. Golf has too many wanna-bes and its terribly evident. Besides many of them don't look athletic...
By the way, while Phil is a crowd favorite much of the time, its Tiger and only Tiger keeping whatever wind is left golf's sail. Phil lacks the overall consistency, family hardship removed, to be on the same plateau as Tiger. Further, Phil is so rich now I don't think he care's. If he cared he wouldn't be 40 victories behind Tiger.....

[Heisenberg]

Good article Matt for addressing the lackluster FedEx cup. Sure, it's big money at 10 mil, but the money is in a tax deferred retirement fund so it loses its significance to the public. Also, a points playoff in individual sports such as golf and NASCAR is insignificant when Daytona and the Master's are at the beginning of the season and interest slowly trickles down afterwards. I'd like to see more match-play team tournaments, like the President's/Ryder cup or maybe even a high-stakes skins game (not the one Freddy Couples plays in every year) played among the top few players. What would you propose in place of the FedEx, Matt?

[GVI]

Good article, Matt, but I must take issue with one statement. The obscene amounts of money these young players make is NOT, in most cases, what is keeping them from winning. If anything, the fact that they can set up trust funds for kids they don't yet have removes the pressure of making a living and allows them to focus solely on winning.

At this level, in any sport, it's about proving that you're the best, something you've been able to do over and over again since childhood. And that's what is really keeping these guys from winning now -- not winning.

Imagine how frustrating and disruptive that is, especially when you know you can hit the ball as well as everybody else. As any golfer knows, the game has a way of getting inside your head and creating uncertainty and doubt. That is what is holding them back. Surely you've noticed that when a guy wins for the first time on the PGA Tour, he tends to win again or place very high in the next few tournaments. At this level, it's all about confidence. -- Craig at http://www.GolfVacationInsider.com

[Matthew DeBord - Huffpost Blogger]

You would think that the removal of financial stress would help, but I think it's had a kind of gaming effect. If you make the cut, you're in the money. If you're in the money, you want to stay more or less in the good money--not press when you're in, say, 15th place, and make some big numbers, costing you potentially many thousands of dollars. I don't think we should go back to the do-or-die days of the early tour, but we have to recognize that the desire to win can be affected by affluence. And I do find it perplexing that so many of the younger players have a win or two, but then can't make the leap to majors. In a sense, they could be TOO confident.