Tiger Woods Makes A Case For The 2008 PGA Tour Player Of The Year Award

When the PGA Tour selects its 2008 Player of the Year, most expect the award to go to Padraig Harrington. 

Harrington has already been awarded the European Tour and Golf Writer’s Association Player of the Year awards.

Harrington’s selection as the 2008 PGA Tour Player of the Year would be largely predicated on his wins at the British Open and PGA Championship which made him the first player, other than Tiger Woods, to win consecutive majors since Nick Price won the British Open and PGA Championship back in 1994.

Winning back-to-back majors is a monumental achievement that very few players in the history of the game have ever achieved.

Harrington’s wins have catapulted him to stardom and have made him arguably the greatest Irish golfer of all-time.

However, the selection of the player of the year award is not as cut and dry as one would first believe.

Tiger Woods has won nine out of the last 11 PGA Tour Player of the Year awards, so the PGA Tour is probably eager to jump at an opportunity to give this award to another worthy candidate such as Harrington.

However, Woods has once again made an excellent case as to why he should collect his 10th Player of the Year award.

In 2008, Woods played in six PGA Tour events and won four of them, including his historic win at the US Open, widely regarded as the toughest test in all of golf, on one leg.

That is an incredible 66.66% winning percentage over six events.

Woods was also no slacker in the two events he didn’t happen to win in 2008.  He finished second at the Masters and fifth at the WGC-CA Championship. 

Aside from Harrington’s wins at the British Open and PGA Championship, which albeit were the most impressive we have seen from anyone other than Tiger Woods in quite some time, Harrington was not all that successful throughout the rest of the year.

Harrington did have a strong showing at the Masters finishing in a tie for fifth.  But, Harrington did not fare as well in many of the year’s other biggest events. 

Harrington missed the cut at the Players Championship, finished 36th at the US Open, and had an abysmal showing at the FedEx Cup missing the cut at both the Barclays Classic and Deutsche Bank Championship before finishing up in a tie for 55th at the Players Championship.

Despite playing in just six events, Woods managed to finish second on the PGA Tour’s money list with earnings of more than $5.75 million.

Harrington played in nine more events than Woods yet still finished eighth on the money list with earnings of $4.31 million. 

Including his wins at the British Open and PGA Championship, Harrington had six top-10 finishes in 2008, the same number Woods had while playing in just six events.

The major championships are what golf is all about.  They are the most difficult tournaments to win and are more or less the determining factor when examining the greatness of a player’s career.

In 2008, Harrington won back-to-back majors, a feat that obviously cannot be overlooked.

However, we also cannot overlook the fact that Tiger Woods won four out of the six events he entered, including a win at the US Open on one leg, and also managed to finish the year second on the PGA Tour’s money list despite playing in just six events. 

One can look at Woods’ 2008 season and say that his knee injury cut his year short thus he did not have the opportunity to perform well enough throughout the course of the season to win the 2008 Player of the Year award.

But, one could also look at Woods’ season and see that he won 66.66% of the tournaments he entered and still finished second on the tour’s money list despite playing 10-15 events less than most other tour players, which is a mind-boggling feat. 

Harrington is likely to win the 2008 PGA Tour Player of the Year award and no one can legitimately argue his worthiness of this honor after back-to-back major wins. 

However, it is not, or at least it should not, be the clear cut case many would have you believe.