You've got questions? You want to know the future? You want answers? John Hawkins asks the questions, but unlike most, he's also got the answers
Until I start hitting more fairways and greens, let's get a few things straight:
Tiger Woods is the greatest player of all-time. That Purple Heart performance at this year's U.S. Open was the clincher, although I had him scaling Mt. Nicklaus after the six straight wins at the end of 2006. Jack still has the 18-14 lead in major titles, but it's only a matter of time and merely part of the equation -- no one other than Babe Ruth has dominated a sport longer or more convincingly than TW.
The outrageous margins of victory. The statistical freak show. The ridiculous ability to get it done under extreme pressure. In ESPN's series on the top 50 athletes of the 20th century, Jack finished ninth. If you took Tiger's career and moved it back a decade, the list of guys ahead of him would be short: Michael Jordan, Ruth, Muhammad Ali and Jim Brown. Wayne Gretzky gets bumped to sixth.
Corey Pavin will be the next U.S. Ryder Cup captain. An announcement is still a month or two away and I don't have any inside information, but you don't need sources on the payroll to know how the PGA of America operates. First of all, it's Pavin's turn. Secondly, Davis Love III's victory in Orlando last week is certain to reboot his competitive drive and push him to make the 2010 team as a player. Pavin and Love are the only real candidates unless you count Paul Azinger, whose successful captaincy at Valhalla makes him the sensible and popular choice.
I haven't talked to Azinger lately, but when we did speak a week after the Ryder Cup, I didn't get the sense he was interested, perhaps because it would deprive Pavin of a shot. Also, there aren't any potential American skippers between Love, who turns 45 in April, and Phil Mickelson, who is 38. Zinger could return in 2012 provided DL3 gets the job in 2014. All pending Tiger's approval, of course.
Sergio Garcia will win at least three majors. After making this prediction on the Golf Channel back in June, the news director was certain I was under the influence of hallucinogens. Garcia would proceed to contend at several of the summer's biggest tournaments, winning none, which did nothing to alter my long-term forecast. Sergio drives the ball too well not to grab a few big trophies before he's done, those devilish four-footers notwithstanding.
His skill set and career shape bear an uncanny resemblance to Greg Norman's. Hard-luck junkies or hardheads, if you get in the hunt often enough, a couple will fall in your lap.
Until the PGA Tour hires an outside source to redesign the FedEx Cup playoffs, the concept will never fly. The problem here is pretty simple: too much catering to the tour's vast middle class, too many competitive concessions made to protect title sponsors and TV ratings. The product in its current form has no aura or postseason essence. To the knowledgeable fan, there is an obvious compromise of priorities. A person with marginal interest would have little reason to care.
"Sometimes, I think maybe we're too close to it," PGA Tour Policy Board member Joe Ogilvie said last week, an observation that bears further examination. The tour's primary job is to care for the players, which it does very well, but in that context, one can see how a season-ending playoff format would amount to a conflict of interest.
The Race to Dubai will not alter pro golf's landscape. It has been billed by the European Tour as "the most exciting development in golf in years," a meaningless overstatement that takes a swipe at the FedEx Cup and flaunts the era's game-show mentality. Anthony Kim and Camilo Villegas have shown interest by applying for Euro membership, an offshoot of their relationships with management company IMG, which generates and oversees appearance fees.
To call this the realization of Norman's world-tour vision in the mid-'90s, however, is a distortion of reality. Camp Euro has struggled mightily in recent years to hold onto its homegrown stars, Garcia and Padraig Harrington being the best examples, and simply had to modernize its product if it wanted to remain relevant. If there are 10 premium-field tournaments played on this earth every year, nine are held in America. As long as more money is the motivation, that won't change tomorrow or the day after.
- Keywords:
- Golf,
- Golf World,
- pga tour,
- john hawkins,
- fedex cup,
- ryder cup,
- davis love III,
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- sergio garcia,
- tiger woods
