Tiger Woods Wins PGA of America Player of the Year Award; Who Cares?

Surprise, surprise, Tiger Woods has been named the PGA of America’s Player of the Year for the 10th time in his 13-year career.

Woods' six PGA Tour wins and eight additional top-10 finishes made him a lock for this award; and there are more to come.

Woods will also need to make room in his Windermere, Florida home, or whatever warehouse he rents to store his ever growing collection of hardware, for the Vardon Trophy (lowest scoring average on the PGA Tour), the Byron Nelson Trophy (lowest adjusted scoring average on tour), the Arnold Palmer Trophy (for winning the PGA Tour money title), and the Nicklaus Trophy (which Woods will undoubtedly receive as the PGA Tour’s Player of the Year).

He may even need to set aside some extra space for a PGA Tour Comeback Player of the Year award; which is certainly one honor that Woods would have never expected to see his name associated with.

Woods will accept these trophies and maybe release a short statement saying how “honored” he is to have received these prestigious awards just a year after undergoing reconstructive ACL surgery.

However, once out of the public eye, he may give these awards to his children to play with out in the backyard, he may use them as bathroom doorstops, or possible give to his dogs as a new toy, because none of these honors mean much to a man who is in the process of re-writing golf’s record books.

The Vardon Trophy, Byron Nelson Trophy and Arnold Palmer Trophy are not what Woods is after.

No. He’s far more interested in things like slipping into a fifth green jacket, or holding up the US Open Trophy for the fourth time, or tossing the Claret Jug in the back of his gulfstream jet for the fourth time, or becoming just the third man in the game’s history to lift the massive Wanamaker Trophy five times.

Woods himself has spoken numerous times about how he personally measures his success based on one criterion and one criterion only—his performance at the major championships.

For that reason, no amount of awards, accolades or 30lb. trophies will make up for the fact that in 2009, Woods went winless in the majors for just the fourth time in his career.  

99.9 percent of the PGA Tour would gladly sacrifice a finger or two to have the season Woods had in 2009.

But, Woods is not and never will be 99.9 percent of the PGA Tour.   

For Woods, it is, and always will be all about the majors.