Phil Mickelson Better Than Tiger Woods, for the Moment

As the news broke that Tiger Woods missed the cut in this year’s Open Championship, I couldn’t help but compare where Lefty stacks up to Woods today. 

This is an interesting comparison since Woods has not returned to his top form since knee surgery last year and Mickelson continues to improve his game since the disappointment at Winged Foot in 2006.

If you look at their respective 2009 seasons, Woods leads the Fed Ex Cup points race and money list, where Mickelson is ranked fifth and fourth respectively. Woods has captured three wins this year to Mickelson’s two.

On the surface, it looks like Tiger continues his dominance over the world's No. 2 golfer, but if you look deeper at their performances, another story rises to the top.

In Woods’s three wins, Phil was not in the field at all. In Phil’s two wins, one came without Tiger in the field, at Riviera, and the other with Tiger in the field, at Doral.

At Doral, the WGC hosted one of the top fields all year on the PGA Tour, only behind the four majors and The Players' Championship. Mickelson outdistanced Tiger by eight strokes that week as he closed the gap on Tiger's strangle-hold on the world’s No. 1 spot.

If you compare their performances in the first two majors, Phil wins again with a fifth place at the Masters and a second place at the U.S. Open, while Tiger finished sixth and sixth, respectively.

Yes, Tiger has won three times this year and proved in last year’s U.S. Open that he can beat the field on one leg, but post-surgery, Tiger can't compete with the top players in the world at the top events, not week in and week out. 

Tiger’s three wins came at Arnie and Jack’s places, and at his own tournament, where the fields were, on average, below par.

At Bay Hill, only 10 of the top 25 players in the world were in the field, and only seven of the top 25 for his tournament at Congressional. The field at Jack’s tournament was comparable to that of Riviera, where Phil recorded his first win this year.

While Tiger struggles to regain his top form and Phil tends to his wife’s illness, we can only anticipate next month, when the stage will be set for a great PGA Championship at Hazeltine. My money is on Phil.