Glory's Last Shot or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the PGA

The last major championship of the year, the self-proclaimed ‘Glory’s Last Shot’, the PGA Championship begins today. In a way, the PGA Championship is the red-headed step child of the majors. It doesn’t have the historical significance of a British Open, the national status of a US Open, or the prestige of the Masters. Simply put, it’s the least important major. But, it’s still a major, it’s still a tournament the players want to win, and it still has a very good field. So how to pick a winner?



Don't be fooled by the flags, Americans
almost always win the tourney


To begin, the PGA’s field is different than the other majors. The other three fields feature a host of amateur players taking up spots from potential winners (I have nothing against amateurs in majors, but they don’t really have a chance of winning, and they do keep a professional out of the tournament), while the PGA has twenty odd club pros, who have absolutely no chance of winning. We can shrink the field down quite a bit when looking for potential winners, but there are still a lot of golfers with a chance at the Wannamaker Trophy.

What also makes it more difficult is the PGA’s tendency to crown more ‘one and done’ major winners than the other three. In the past quarter century we’ve seen such household names as Jeff Sluman, Shaun Micheel, YE Yang, Rich Beem, Wayne Grady, Mark Brooks and Bob Tway win this tournament. Hardly world beaters, these are players who never really amounted to much other than that one hot week. So when we look at the field this weekend, these ‘no-name’ players have to be considered, even though their biggest ‘win’ might be a T22 in the Lumber 84 Classic.

Of course having said all that, the cream of the crop still win most of the time, and the PGA has featured multiple major winners like Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Padraig Harrington, and Vijay Singh in the past ten years. But it’s so difficult to handicap the world’s best players at the PGA, because they play so little leading up to it. Many of the top players might only play three or four tournaments in June, July and August, including the Majors.

The tournament is being held at the Atlanta Athletic Club, which last hosted in 2001 where David Toms won by one over Mickelson. The course has also hosted the Tour Championship a couple of times, so it shouldn’t have any surprises. One last thing to consider is that the past six majors have been won by non-Americans and first time Major winners. Only once before has there been a stretch of four majors without an American winner, and Americans have won 77 of 93 PGA Championships.

I just don’t see this trend continuing for too much longer, so look for a Yank to win this week. I’d like to say that person will also have already won a Major, but there are only 14 Americans in the field who have previously won a Major, four of which are Larry Nelson (age 63), Mark Brooks (age 50), Jerry Pate (age 57), and John Daly (fat and drunk). Add to that Tiger having no chance, there aren’t many options. I think I have to agree with Newman, Phil as the best shot to win.



I was hoping to have this posted early this morning, but due to some technical difficulties I wasn’t able to. Since the first round is almost complete, I’ve decided not to include anything specific to any one player. However, I thought it funny to note my pre-tournament predictions for these two, in light of what happened in round 1:

Steve Stricker - 1,000,000,000 to 1

I am sick and tired of hearing about Steve Stricker. He may be the most overrated player of all time. Or at least tied with Sergio Garcia. He’s never won anything of significance, and his only top finish in a major was a 2nd at the 1998 PGA. His world ranking is dependant on strong finishes in tournaments real top players wouldn’t show their faces at. If he wins, I’ll wear Canucks apparel to the Flames home opener this year.

Tiger Woods – 500 to 1 (to win) – 5 to 1 (to withdraw because of ‘injury’)

Tiger’s return to golf last week didn’t really turn out as planned. Not only did he finish near the bottom, his former caddy was on the winning bag. That might have lit a fire under old Tiger, but Tiger 2.0 is a shell of his former self. He still isn’t in the right place mentally, and he’s too fragile physically. The only thing he’ll be stalking this week is IHOP.


Please note, I stand by both of these predictions.


-The Rev


Jersey Foul?
twitter.com/TheRevBW
thesportsroundup@gmail.com
Agree? Disagree? We want to hear from you! Click below to comment