2008 PGA Tour Award Series: Breakout Player Of The Year

The 2008 PGA Tour season certainly did not play out in a way that even the most knowledgeable golf analysts would have predicted. 

Tiger Woods went down with a season-ending knee injury after winning the US Open on one leg. Tiger Woods won the US Open on one leg….now that is a sentence I never thought I’d write. 

Padraig Harrington not only defended his British Open title, over Greg Norman no less, but he went on to win the PGA Championship a few weeks later, making him the first player other than Woods to win two majors in the same year since Mark O’Meara won the Masters and British Open back in 1998. 

In Woods’ absence could we have finally come across a legitimate competitor for him?  Possibly even a group of talented young golfers ready to provide some much needed competition to Woods?

The Americans won the Ryder Cup. 

No, that last sentence was not meant to enable this article to be categorized as "humor;" the Americans finally won the Ryder Cup for the first time in nearly a decade. 

The 2008 golf season has indeed been one of the strangest seasons in quite some time. 

Here is my attempt to summarize the season in the form of a series of articles awarding various distinctions to players, shots, moments and events that have taken place over the course of the 2008 season. 

Breakout Players of The Year:  Anthony Kim and Camilo Villegas

Up until about three weeks ago, Anthony Kim had both of his hands wrapped around this award with his name engraved in the trophy. 

Kim won his first PGA Tour event at the strong fielded Wachovia Championship, probably soon to be called either the CitiGroup or Wells Fargo Championship depending upon who is successful in their acquisition of Wachovia, yet another failed bank.

Kim then went on to win Tiger Woods’ AT&T National in early July. 

Kim, just 23 years old, attended his first British Open in mid-July, where he finished in a tie for seventh place, despite finishing next to last in the entire field in putting.  Had Kim putted halfway decently at Royal Birkdale back in July, he would have had a real chance at winning his first career major. 

However, as an up-and-comer, just performing well in the British Open is enough to promote confidence in your ability to compete against the best players in the world in one of golf’s most grueling tests. 

Then we have the Ryder Cup, which clearly marked Kim’s ascension from an up-and-comer to golf’s next superstar. 

Kim is now widely regarded as the underlying spark that fueled the American’s team fire in the 2008 Ryder Cup. 

Kim played outstanding golf all weekend, which came to a pinnacle with his trouncing of Sergio Garcia 5&4 in his final day’s singles match. 

Kim led the American team out in the final day’s pressure-packed singles matches and immediately shifted that all important Ryder Cup momentum to the American side, where it would stay for the rest of the day and eventually lead to their first Ryder Cup victory since 1999. 

Kim has arrived on golf’s main stage with a bang and has quickly become the game’s brightest hope of challenging Woods on a constant basis.

Then we have Camilo Villegas. 

The Colombian-born Villegas has been on the tour for a few years now but had yet to win a tournament until this year’s BMW Championship, the third stage of the year-end FedEx Cup playoffs.

Villegas held off both Jim Furyk and Anthony Kim to capture his first PGA Tour victory at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, Mo. 

Villegas celebrated his victory at the BMW Championship with a trip back home to Colombia the following week, which was a dead week on tour due to the Ryder Cup.  

Villegas claimed that he did not even bring his clubs home with him and showed up at the Tour Championship having not touched a club in over a week. 

What did Villegas do? 

He went out and won his second consecutive PGA Tour event by beating out Sergio Garcia on the first hole of a sudden death playoff to capture the much coveted Tour Championship. 

Winning any two consecutive PGA Tour events is an impressive feat in itself, but, winning the final two FedEx Cup events including the Tour Championship, which along with the Players Championship is considered the most important tour event outside of the majors, is even more impressive. 

What made Camilo’s performance at the Tour Championship solidify his spot alongside Anthony Kim as the Breakout Player of The Year was the way he went out and took the tournament from Anthony Kim, Phil Mickelson, and Sergio Garcia. 

Villegas racked up eight birdies en-route to a final round 66.  He showed a Tiger-like ability to make the big shot when he needed to and drain those incredibly important 10- to 15-foot putts in the most crucial situations.

Out of these two bright young stars, Kim has so far displayed the mechanics, ability and temperament to compete on a more constant basis.  However, Villegas has shown us exactly what he is capable of when he catches fire.

Anthony Kim and Camilo Villegas will undoubtedly provide for some exciting moments in the coming years and maybe, just maybe some legitimate competition for Tiger Woods.