Forget Tiger Woods: Who We Should Be Focusing On

With Tiger Woods feeding the entertainment industry with his apparent “affairs”, not only the World of Golf, but all the gossip shows and news networks are picking up this story and running with it faster than Usain Bolt could run if he was actually trying.

However, while all of this is going on outside of the golf course, we can’t forget that there are indeed tournaments going on, and PGA regulars shining like stars. Tiger isn’t the only golfer in this world, and while he is good, he seems to be getting too much attention lately. In fact, if you take that attention and compare it to the mediocrity that most golfers are sitting in right now, it just makes me think of all the others on the PGA Tour that aren’t getting enough attention, and are seriously underrated.

The question now is simple. Who should get the Golf World’s attention? These men definitely make the cut.

J.B. Holmes

What a better way to kick off this list than with J.B. Holmes. Holmes arrived on tour in 2005, finishing in the Top 10 in his first ever PGA event. Just a month later, he would win the 2006 FBR Open. It seemed like Mr. Holmes would have a good future on the PGA, in both success, and recognition.

However, when he had a less-than-satisfactory season in 2007, he fell of the radar and seemed to have petered out, having only two Top 10 finishes that year. However, in 2008, he began to regain form, and became a threat who was notorious for his long drives.

Now, he is one of the PGA Tour’s elite, but despite this, the amount of attention that he gets is down to a minimum, even on the Golf Channel. The good part about J.B. Holmes’ situation, is that it is bound to get better.

He is still young, and has a long career ahead of him. The coverage that he deserves is bound to come eventually, since not only can he “grip it and rip it”, but he is a very all-around golfer. That will eventually haunt his opponents like he demonstrated against Phil Mickelson in a playoff at the 2008 FBR Open.

Mike Weir

Mike Weir, CM, is arguably the best Canadian golfer in the world right now. He holds 8 PGA Tour victories, including the 2003 Masters, and has accomplished many other feats such as defeating Tiger Woods in a Ryder Cup match, and tying for 3rd at the 2003 U.S. Open.

While Mike Weir does have an impressive list of achievements, including being on the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario, his momentum has dwindled. He has 2 PGA wins in the last 6 years, and has performed under the bar for the past couple of years.

Recently, Weir has been on a tear, getting fourteen Top 10 finishes in the past 2 seasons, and while that doesn’t seem like much, whenever he doesn’t finish near the top, he’s right next to it. If his game continues to elevate, hopefully his status does too, because Weir deserves to be at the top of the food chain.

Kenny Perry

If I had to describe Kenny Perry’s near 20 year career, it would be capturing the spotlight and then relinquishing it 15 minutes later. Yes, Kenny Perry has had some historic performances in his career, with many of them going in the record books. However, almost every time Perry succeeds, he either gets pushed out of the spotlight by something else, or somebody else get the credit for something he was a part of.

This has happened on many occasions. For example, if he had won the Masters against Angel Cabrera this year, he would’ve become the oldest person to ever win the Masters, at 48 years of age. When he lost, it was told that Mr. Perry, got 700 letter from fans, including one from former President, George W. Bush.

After the heartbreaking loss at the Masters and all the fan mail, his publicity level went down, and now if you ask the average US Citizen who Kenny Perry is, they likely won’t know. Hopefully, we will get to see some success from him before he moves on to the Champions Tour, or retires.

Camilo Villegas

The Spiderman has a very inspiring story. He got into Professional Golf the hard way. He started out in Columbia, where he won countless amateur championships in between the ages of 8 and 17. He would be named Player of the Decade in Columbia, and would manage to earn a scholarship to play Collegiate Golf at the University of Florida.

When he finally qualified for the PGA Tour in 2006, he would become a significant threat right off the bat, finishing in the Top 5 of three of his first nine events; an imposing start to his PGA career. However, it wasn’t his PGA Tour endeavours that got him started. He got his first professional win on the Japan Golf Tour, at the Coca Cola-Tokai Classic.

Villegas would get his first win on the PGA in 2008 at the BMW Championship. Although it took that long to get a win playing on the Big Leagues of Golf, it isn’t getting the wins that he is known for. Villegas already has 5 Top 10 finishes on the PGA Tour this year and is in the Top 30 on the money list for the European Tour. Villegas may not win many tournaments, but he has showed that many people have greatly underestimated him.

Thank you for reading my slide, and please tell me what you think in the comments section.