Now that the four major tournaments have been completed, we can start talking about who is likely to be the PGA Player of the Year. Because no one player has been truly dominant, it’s a difficult decision to make.
We should start the discussion with who won the major tournaments. The major title winners this year are Charl Schwartzel, Rory McIlroy, Darren Clarke, and Keegan Bradley.
Clarke and McIlroy aren’t members of the Tour, so they’re out right away. Schwartzel won the Masters, and finished no worse than 12th in the other three majors. Bradley won the PGA, but wasn’t qualified for the other three.
In the past twenty years, only three players have won POY without winning a major title. Greg Norman in 1995 and Corey Pavin in 1991 won the award and were the Tour’s leading money winner. This year the money leader is Luke Donald, with Nick Watney close behind. Schwartzel is currently #20 on the money list, and Bradley is #6.
Multiple Tour winners? Jim Furyk, the third non-major POY winner, won the award last year for winning three tournaments, including the Tour Championship.
This year’s multiple winners, each with two, are Mark Wilson (13), Bubba Watson (9), Steve Stricker (4), Watney (2), with current money list places in parentheses, and Bradley.
Donald has won twice in Europe, but that won’t help him here. He won once on the PGA Tour and has been world #1 for eleven weeks.
Stroke average? In order, Donald, Stricker, Watney, Garcia (!), and Schwartzel. This has never been the deciding factor, but it does add validation to the other criteria.
Those are all the objective standards we can haul out. If you want to add charisma, McIlroy wins hands down, but again, he’s not a member of the Tour. Who we are left with are Bradley (two wins + PGA), Donald (one win, W#1, leading money winner), Stricker (two wins, #4 on the money list), Schwartzel (Masters), and Watney (two wins, #2 on the money list). Watson, and Wilson, nope.
Stricker, Schwartzel, and Watney are having good seasons, but that’s it. It looks to me like a contest between Donald and Bradley, with the edge to Donald because of his year-long consistency and assuming W#1.
Of course, someone could get hot in the FedEx Cup series and shake things up. Normally I don’t care very much about this desperate exercise to compete with the NFL and NASCAR that only Tim Finchem and Kelly Tilghman love, but this year it might actually mean something.