At this time one year ago, the PGA Tour made some amount of sense to me. Sure, the game”s dominant linkster, Tiger Woods, was basically null and void, but everything else seemed to fall into place. Phil Mickelson had won the Masters, a pair of European Tour stars took home the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship, and there was another fluke winner in the British Open, namely Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa.
Jim Furyk took home the big money Fed Ex Cup. Matt Kuchar won just under $5 million to capture the season-long money title. One of those Euros who won a major, PGA champion Martin Kaymer, concluded the year as the world”s No.1-ranked golfer. The Ryder Cup came down to the final match with U.S. Open winner Grame McDowell defeating Hunter Mahan for a European win. Looking back, all was right with the golfing world.
Shades of Wayne Levi, things are a whole lot different today as the PGA Tour concludes its season with the final Fall Series tournament playing out at Disney World in Orlando. Normally at this time of the year in golf, we keep one eye on the bubble boys, those professionals who are trying to force their way into the top 125 all-exempt-tour for 2012 while the other eye is scooping out the conclusion of the Nationwide Tour and the quest of the top 20 who will graduate onto next year”s PGA Tour. However, in this, the Year of the Journeyman, all bets are out the window with all kinds of other scenarios.
First and foremost is the saga of Webb Simpson. He is currently leading the money list with $6.2 million in earnings over the course of 25 tournaments. Right behind him on the money list is the world”s No. 1-ranked golfer, the majorless Luke Donald. Simpson has entered seven more tourneys this year than Donald. Donald is an Englishman who played collegiate golf at Northwestern University and also holds dual membership on the European Tour. Both are entered this week at Disney World in an effort to nail down the money crown for 2011.
The talk among golf journalism circles is that a strong showing this weekend should be just enough to garner Webb Simpson player of the year honors. This is a disturbing thought since such a thing was totally incomprehensible just three months ago. After all, he was winless at that time for his career and hadn”t even been able to get into the field at the first major championship of the year, the Masters.
The 26-year-old Simpson, a three-time All-American at Wake Forest, played on the Walker Cup team in 2007. He turned pro the following year, finished seventh that December at PGA Tour Q School, and found himself on golf”s center stage as a rookie in 2009. An early fifth-place finish at the Bob Hope in January set the tone for the year with Simpson finishing 70th on the money list. He recorded four top-10 finishes that year.
The 2010 season was a bit of a step back for Webb as he earned less than $1 million in winnings and finished 94th on the money list. As the 2011 season commenced, Simpson was just another good, young player with zero wins and zero worldwide golfing status. He did have a second-place finish in March at the Transitions in Palm Harbor, but when April rolled around and it was time to tee it up at the Masters, Simpson was uninvited.
Later that month, Simpson lost a sudden-death playoff to Bubba Watson in New Orleans. He missed the cut at the PGA Championship in August and then rebounded the following week, winning the Wyndham in Greensboro for his first professional victory. Over Labor Day weekend, he won the second stage of the Fed Ex Cup playoffs in Boston. He went into the playoff finals in Atlanta with a chance to win the $10 Fed Ex Cup bonus pool, but lost out in the end to Billy Haas due to indifferent play. Last weekend he jumped into first place on the money list, finishing solo second after losing the playoff at Sea Island to Ben Crane. Webb Simpson will be on the Presidents Cup team for its biennial matches next month in Australia.
Nonetheless, this is all too bizarre. You win non-major tournaments in August and September, post a trio of second-place finishes, and suddenly you”re the flavor of the moment for golfer of the year honors. On top of that, Simpson is one of those belly putter guys who have infiltrated golf”s highest levels. To weakly paraphrase Bob Dylan, something”s going on here and none of us know what it is.
Looking beyond the very top of the money list, dichotomy reigns supreme. Last year”s money winner, Matt Kuchar, is in sixth place this year with $4.23 million in earnings. He is winless this year. One spot behind Kuchar is Billy Haas, the Fed Ex Cup champ. Well beyond the top 10 is Johnson Wagner, who finished one spot out of the top 125 last year. However, Wagner took advantage of the moment and caught a break earlier this year when he won the Mayakoba Classic in late February. The Mayakoba is a fairly minor tour event that is played simultaneous to the Match Play Championship, which features the world”s top 64 golfers. Wagner”s win got him back onto the tour along with a two-year exemption. He is 76th on the money list with more than half of his earnings coming from his win. He also has one more win this year than Kuchar … and Tiger and Ernie.
Tiger Woods is 121st on the money list with $660,238 in earnings for nine events. He doesn”t have to worry about top-125 exempt status due to the fact that he is exempt for life on the tour because he has 20-plus career wins. He too is on the Presidents Cup team although I”d hate to be the golfer paired with him during the alternate shot matches.
James Driscoll is the bubble boy at the moment, sitting in 125th place with just under $646,000 in earnings. Bill Lunde, who always seems to find himself on the bubble year after year, is one spot on the outside, $6,287 behind Driscoll. Longtime veteran Billy Mayfair, who had to go to Q School last year, is in 127th place, $12,000 back. Rocco Mediate, who won the Frys.com last year in San Jose, played 22 times this year, is ranked 205th, and has won only $136,299. On the other end of the spectrum is John Cook, who is 179th with $251,600. Cook entered only one tournament this year.
It”s been a very different sort of year for the PGA Tour this year. Thankfully, the Year of the Journeyman comes to its insane conclusion this Sunday at Disney World.
