PGA Tour: Predicting The 2009 Major Winners

Golf has always been an extremely difficult sport to predict. 

In sports such as baseball and basketball there are two teams competing against each other, which, needless to say, offers a 50 percent chance of successfully choosing the winner of any game.

In golf, there is a field of 155 or more players, which presents a 0.06 percent chance of correctly predicting the winner, albeit Tiger Woods is winning more than 30 percent of the majors he plays in, making Woods a far safer bet than any other player. 

The level of parity seen on today’s PGA Tour combined with the usual favorite, Tiger Woods, still recovering from reconstructive knee surgery makes it that much more difficult to predict the outcome of the 2009 majors.

Here’s an attempt to predict the winners of the 2009 majors; an attempt that statistics would suggest to be virtually impossible.  But here it goes anyway.

The Masters: Vijay Singh

Vijay won his first-ever major at Augusta back in 2000 and has finished in the Top 25 at the Masters in each of the last eight years. 

Vijay finished the 2008 season by winning three out of his last seven events, resulting in the FedEx Cup title and the No. 1 spot on the tour’s money list.

Vijay is suffering from some minor aches and pains, which include a torn meniscus in his right knee and a mild case of tendinitis in his left elbow, as would be expected from any 46-year-old man who hits around 1,000 golf balls per day.

However, as the 2009 season gets underway, there is no one on the PGA Tour with a hotter game than Vijay Singh.

If Vijay can stay healthy, he might just have enough pop left in him to snatch one more major championship.

The US Open:  Sergio Garcia

Throughout the course of Sergio Garcia’s career, he has probably never had a better  chance to shed that much unwanted label of being "the best player to have never won a major tournament."

Garcia won the 2008 Players Championship, which is widely regarded as golf’s fifth major, and finished second to Padraig Harrington and his miracle putter at the PGA Championship.

Garcia is now the second-ranked player in the world, and a strong start to the 2009 season could allow him to surpass Tiger Woods and become the No. 1-ranked player in the world. 

The 2009 US Open will be played at Bethpage Black, which is an extremely long and narrow course that demands near perfect ball-striking; a demand that bodes well for a player who is widely regarded as the best ball-striker in the game. 

Garcia certainly has the distance and accuracy to bring a course like Bethpage Black to its knees. 

If his putting and, more importantly, his mental game can hold steady for four consecutive rounds, Garcia could finally win his first major in June at Bethpage and bestow the label of being ‘the best player to have never won a major’ on to someone else

The British Open: Ernie Els

Ernie Els has been on a long road to recovery from a serious knee injury he suffered back in 2005. 

During the 2008 season, we got a small glimpse of the Ernie of old, particularly at the Honda Classic, where Els won his first PGA Tour event in more than three years.

Since 2000, Els has finished in the Top 10 at the British Open seven times, including a win in 2002. 

At 39-years-old, Els should still have some good years ahead of him on the PGA Tour. 

Heading into the 2009 season with a fully healthy knee, look for Els to have that big comeback season he has been looking for since his 2005 injury. 

The 2009 British Open, which will be played at Turnberry, might just provide the perfect stage for Els to capture his fourth major title.  

The PGA Championship:  Tiger Woods

Standard logic would suggest that it will probably take Woods some time to get back to his top form upon returning to the tour in 2009.

However, Woods and the words "standard" and "logic" really have no place appearing the same sentence together. He seems to defy them both.

Based on the first 12 years of Woods’ career, it should not surprise anyone if he shows up and immediately resumes his domination of the PGA Tour.

After winning the 2008 US Open on one leg, we shouldn’t be surprised one bit if this guy makes his return at Augusta in April and wins the Masters.

However, the safe road would fall somewhere in-between "standard logic" and "Tiger Woods logic."

Look for Tiger Woods’ return to be better than expected. 

Look for Woods to win several PGA Tour events during the year, on his way to yet another PGA Tour Player of the Year Award.

But the average PGA Tour event is vastly different from the majors, particularly in terms of the physical and mental stress a player must endure.

For that reason, it is predicted that Tiger Woods will continue to strengthen his knee and his game throughout the 2009 season, with his recovery culminating in a win at the year’s final major, the PGA Championship. 

What better way for Woods to make it known that he is back and put everyone on tour on the lookout than winning at Hazeltine National Golf Club, where Rich Beem pulled off that shocking upset over Woods back in 2002.