Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson: What Does The Future Hold?

Despite not winning a single event and contending in less than a handful, the 2010 season was all about Tiger Woods.

Will Woods win in 2010?

What’s going on with Woods’s swing?

Is Woods working with Sean Foley?

What’s going on with Woods’ putter?

Will Woods lose his world number-one ranking?

Will Woods regain his world number-one ranking?

Although there are hundreds of other golfers on the PGA Tour—and thousands more around the world making their living on the golf course—the attention Woods receives week after week is understandable.

The guy has won 14 majors and 71 PGA Tour events.  With Woods, we are witnessing the career of arguably the greatest golfer of all-time.  Of course, we are going to be interested in everything he does on and off the golf course.

Not following Woods’ every move would be like not paying attention to Muhammad Ali or Michael Jordan during their primes.

But with all of the hoopla surrounding Woods for most of the 2010 season, the tumultuous season of this generation’s second most successful player was lost in the shuffle.

Phil Mickelson won the Masters in early April, but followed his fourth major championship victory with one of the worst stretches of golf he has experienced in his career.

On top of his struggles on the course, Mickelson’s wife and mother were still going through grueling cancer treatments while Mickelson himself was dealing with a career threatening health issue.   

At the PGA Championship at Whistling Straights, Mickelson announced that he had been suffering from severe joint pain prior to the U.S. Open, and had recently been diagnosed with Psoriatic Arthritis.

Any time you win the Masters, the year is a success, particularly for Mickelson whose career is all about major championships at this point.

But take away those four magical days in April and there is reason to be concerned about Mickelson’s game, if not more than Woods’ game.

Following his win at Augusta, Mickelson finished second to Rory McIlroy at the Quail Hollow Championship.  From that point forward, Mickelson posted just three top-10s in the next seven months, and went 1-3-0 at the Ryder Cup, thus securing him a much unwanted title—the player with the most losses in U.S. Ryder Cup history.

Aside from a T-4 finish at the 2010 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, the last seven months of the season were one long nightmare for Mickelson.

Like Woods, Mickelson is also at a career crossroads.

Mickelson turned forty-years old last June, and with four majors and 32 PGA Tour wins, he is right on the cusp of moving into the category of truly great players.

If Mickelson were to get to six majors and 45 PGA Tour wins during the Tiger Woods era, he could probably be considered one of the top-10 golfers of all-time. 

Only 11 men would have won more major championships ,and just seven men would have won more PGA Tour events.

If Mickelson is on the decline and never wins another major, well, then he’d likely fall into a category the likes of Jimmy Damaret, Raymond Floyd, Billy Casper and Vijay Singh… which is  far cry from being grouped with the likes of Tom Watson, Arnold Palmer, Sam Snead and Gene Sarazen.

Over the next few years, most of the attention will still be focused on Woods, as he is after a far greater achievement than Mickelson—most major championship wins of all-time.  

But, in Mickelson we have another player chasing down history.

Mickelson has a legitimate chance to push himself into a new stratosphere in terms of how he will be remembered in this game.

As we head into the 2011 season, we have not one, but two large question marks hovering over the heads of the two undisputed best players of this generation…

And Mickelson’s question mark may just be larger than Woods’.