The top professional golfers on the PGA Tour are in Irving, Texas this week for the HP Byron Nelson Classic. It was exactly one year ago that the nephew of LPGA Hall of Famer Pat Bradley won the event.
Tour rookie Keegan Bradley shot a final-round 68 to make up four shots, and then defeated Ryan Palmer in a one-hole sudden death playoff. Later that summer, he won the PGA Championship in overtime. Belly putter and all, in the course of 12 months, Bradley went from an unknown to a major champion.
Bradley was not alone when it came to out-of-nowhere winners in 2011. Mark Wilson was a tour headliner, winning in Hawaii and Phoenix. Bubba Watson beat out Phil Mickelson at Torrey Pines and also won at New Orleans.
There were a lot of “who”s he?” moments with Jhonny Vegas capturing the Bob Hope, D.A. Points coming through at Pebble Beach, Johnson Wagner coming in first at Mayakoba, Michael Bradley winning in Puerto Rico, Gary Woodland finishing first at the Transitions, Martin Laird taking home the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Brendan Steele prevailing at the Texas Open and an aging David Toms winning at Colonial the week after losing at The Players Championship.
The 2011 Masters was won by Charl Schwartzel (a largely unknown South African who putted lights out), and the prestigious “fifth major,” The Players, was won by K.J. Choi (who avoided putting miscues).
One-third of the way through the 2011 PGA Tour campaign, it was evident that it had all the makings of the year of the journeyman. With Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington and Vijay Singh all across the 40-year-old barrier as well as Tiger Woods being baggage-laden, the revolving door of new and unexpected tournament champions was a reality.
Even the major titles would haphazardly play out in a similar way, with 22-year-old Rory McIlroy running away with the U.S. Open, over-the-hill veteran Darren Clarke taking home the Claret Jug at the British Open at Royal St. George”s and the aforementioned Bradley beating Jason Dufner at the PGA Championship.
However, Matt Kuchar”s victory last Sunday at The Players was further proof that the journeyman season of last year is long forgotten.
Golfers of note, with Grand Slam titles to their name as well as Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup experience on their golfing resumes, are finding the winner”s circle throughout the first third of the 2012 season on the American PGA Tour.
It has been a good year for the 40 and older crowd thus far. Steve Stricker won the season-opening Tournament of Champions at Kapalua. Mickelson pulled out at a Sunday 64 to win at Pebble Beach.
Even Woods got into the act, momentarily, by lapping the field at Bay Hill in the Arnold Palmer.
People who started to win last year have added a trophy to the mantle this year. Wagner won in Hawaii, Wilson won the Bob Hope, Brandt Snedeker followed up last year”s win at Harbour Town with a victory in San Diego and Carl Pettersson was victorious at Harbour Town this year.
All of the really good players have found victory lane this year.
Bill Haas, the 2011 FedEx Cup champ, won in Los Angeles. Hunter Mahan won the World Match Play and the Houston Open. McIlroy held off Woods to win the Honda Classic. World No. 1 Luke Donald won the Transitions while Justin Rose prevailed at Doral.
Kuchar”s victory last weekend at The Players was another case of a world top-20 linkster coming through against a strong field.
Former British Open champion Ben Curtis won the Texas Open to end a five-year drought. Dufner, the reigning PGA runner-up, came through with his first career win at New Orleans. Rickie Fowler also finally broke through with an impressive victory at Quail Hollow.
And, of course, the 2012 Masters will forever be etched into our memory banks as Watson, building on two wins from last year, came through in grand style, creating a lifetime memory with great and dramatic ball-striking from the trees.
So what does this all mean? Are there really identifiable trends in the world of big-time professional golf? Is anything really defined on the PGA Tour when you consider that from week to week there is just one winner and 154 other non-winners?
After all, we know that the Boston Celtics reigned supreme in the 1960s or that the 49ers were the team of the 1980s, but it”s hard to say that Greg Norman or Nick Faldo or Freddie Couples or Davis Love III was the dominant golfer of the 1990s.
Nonetheless, we are at a changing-of-the-guard moment in golf history. In 2000, Woods won nine PGA Tour events. He took home eight wins in 1999 and 2006, and won seven more times in 2007. In 2009, he led the tour with six wins.
Singh was the top winner in 2004 with nine victories. In 2010, when golf”s big guns were starting to decline, Jim Furyk won the FedEx Cup and led the tour with three wins – the first time so few wins topped that category since 1995.
In 2011, seven different golfers, including Keegan Bradley, Donald, Stricker, Watson, Wilson, Nick Watney and Webb Simpson, won two tourneys apiece to lead the tour in victories.
The last time that happened was in 1991 when eight different golfers won two times each. The previous year, journeyman Wayne Levi led the tour with four wins. Those days in the early ”90s marked the end of the Tom Watson, Seve Ballesteros and Faldo era. The tour would not have a dominant figure until Woods hit it big in 1997.
This has happened at other times too. It”s not like a trio of greats just move aside and a new triumvirate takes their place.
During the 1940s through the early 1950s, Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Sam Snead were the top golfers of their generation. As their skills declined and as they aged, they were momentarily replaced by talented golfers such as Doug Ford, Jackie Burke, Dow Finsterwald and Cary Middlecoff.
While each of those men won two majors, they didn”t have the selling power of Hogan, Snead and Nelson or the previous trio of Walter Hagen, Bobby Jones and Gene Sarazen. Yet, within five years, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player were winning majors, and Jack Nicklaus would soon join them atop leaderboards.
Just like those days in the mid-1950s or the early 1990s, we”ll just have to sit and wait for the next great wave of golfers to take their place on the game”s center stage.
