Record Umbrella Sales
As of this week, there have been 22 events and Mother Nature has played a significant role in half of them or better. Not sure what’s going on there, other than to say that the PGA Tour merchandise tents should be posting record sales of towels, bucket caps, and umbrellas. At this rate, the 2010 season should wrap up in late February of 2011.
The Flow of the Continental Tide
Thru 22 events on tour this season, this is the breakdown for PGA Tour wins by continent:
USA – 13
Australia – 3
South Africa – 3
Europe – 2
South America – 1
Stock Report of the 2010 Winners Currently
Geoff Ogilvy – Trending downward. Ogilvy is in the process of a repeat performance of 2009. After winning the opening event of the season at the SBS Championship, he’s carded only one top 25 finish and missed the cut at the Players Championship.
Ryan Palmer – Trending downward. Palmer won the season’s second event at the Sony Open in Hawaii, but has missed the cut in 8 of his last 13 starts. He did manage a T-9 at the Valero Texas Open a couple of weeks back, but a +6 showing in the first two rounds of last week’s Byron Nelson Championship was his 8th missed cut of the season.
Bill Haas – Trending steady. Haas opened up the season with a missed cut at the Sony Open, but won the Bob Hope Classic the very next week. He finished T-6 at the WGC CA Championship at TPC Doral Blue Monster, finished inside the top 25 at the Transitions and at Bay Hill, and finished T-26 at the Masters. He’s only missed two cuts this season.
Ben Crane – Trending upward. Ben won the Farmers Insurance Open, then finished 9th three weeks later at the WGC Accenture Matchplay Championship. He picked up two more top 10′s with an impressive T-4th at the Players Championship a few weeks ago and a T-7th at last week’s Byron Nelson Championship. He finished in the top 25 at Bay Hill, the Shell Houston Open, and the Masters. Crane is one of the biggest surprises of the season thus far.
Steve Stricker – Trending steady. Strick got his first win of the season at the Northern Trust Open, and has two top 10′s with a 3rd place finish at the Sony Open and T-8th at the Transitions. He also finished T-16th at the WGC CA Championship at the TPC Doral Blue Monster. He finished T-30th at the Masters, his last event played before experiencing a chest injury that has kept him out of action the past month.
Dustin Johnson – Trending upward. DJ picked up his 3rd win of his career at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, and notched two more top 10′s with a T-3rd finish at the Northern Trust Open and a T-7th finish at the Byron Nelson Championship last week. He also has two top 25′s – finishing T-16th in both the SBS Championship and the Sony Open. He’s another big surprise at the midway point of the season.
Cameron Beckman – Trending downward. Beckman won at the Mayakoba Golf Classic, but it’s worth noting that the Mayakoba was an also-ran event with a weaker field, since it coincided with the WGC Accenture Matchplay Championship that week. He did pick up a T-5th at last week’s Byron Nelson Championship, but since getting his first win, Beckman has missed the cut in 6 of his last 8 starts. Prior to last week, his best finish outside of the lone win was a T-59th at the Verizon Heritage.
Ian Poulter – Trending steady. The flamboyant Englishman finally broke the drought in the states by winning the first WGC event of the season – the Accenture Matchplay Championship. He has one top 10 with his T-10th place finish at the Masters, and a top 25 finish with a T-24th at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. He did miss the cut at the Players Championship, but he’s played well enough in the other two big events with strong fields to keep his game afloat.
Hunter Mahan – Trending steady. It took a month into the season, but Hunter sprang to life at the Phoenix Open. That win helped get him inside the top 20 in the world rankings. He has one other top 10, with a T-8th finish at the Masters. He has three top 25′s with a T-25 at Bay Hill, and T-17th at both the Quail Hollow Championship and the Players.
Camilo Villegas – Trending steady. He began his season with a 3rd place finish at the WGC Accenture Matchplay Championship, then finished T-8th at the Phoenix Open. The following week he picked up his first win of the season at the Honda Classic, then picked up another top 5 at the Verizon Heritage. He finished T-38th at the Masters, and missed the cut at the Players Championship. But he’s had a great season thus far.
Derek Lamely – Trending downward. Lamely won the second also-ran event of the season – the Puerto Rico Open – of which happened to coincide with the second WGC event of the season. He does have two other top 25 finishes, with a T-18th at the Bob Hope and a T-11th at Bay Hill. But in 15 starts this season he has failed to make it into the weekend 8 times.
Ernie Els – Trending upward. What an incredible season that the Big Easy is having… two wins (WGC CA Championship, Bay Hill Invitational) three top 10′s (Farmers Insurance Open, Northern Trust Open, Valero Texas Open) and three top 25′s (Sony Open, WGC Accenture Matchplay Championship, the Masters). The only blemish came at the Players where he would miss his only cut of the season.
Anthony Kim – Trending upward. AK was having a banner season up until his thumb injury took him out of action a few weeks back, winning the Shell Houston Open back in April. He finished 2nd at the Honda Classic, then finished 3rd at Augusta, and finished T-7th in his last tournament prior to having surgery – the Quail Hollow Championship. Hopefully he can maintain his strong form when he comes back in a couple of months.
Phil Mickelson – Trending upward. Yeah, he had a sluggish start to the season. At least by his standards anyway. But he did get inside the top 20 in his first event of the year, with a 19th place finish at the Farmers Insurance Open. His other top 25 finishes: T-24 at the Phoenix Open, T-17th at the Players. But Augusta would remove any doubts that Phil was back. And had it not been for Rory McIlroy’s unconscious Sunday performance at Quail Hollow, Phil would be sporting two wins this season. But he’d have to settle for a second place finish there, thanks to the young Irishman.
Jim Furyk – Trending upward. We’d expect no less of Jim, one of the most consistent players of his era. He broke a 2-year winless drought with his victory at Transitions, and then bagged another big win at the Verizon Heritage. Besides those two wins, Furyk has 3 top 25′s and a top 10 finish. Jim and and Ernie are undoubtedly the frontrunners for comeback player of the year honors. It’ll be interesting to see how the rest of the season unfolds.
Jason Bohn – Trending steady. Bohn has 4 missed cuts this season, but his win at the Zurich Classic last month revealed a guy who appears to be finding his niche on tour. Jason has a top 10 with a T-10 finish at the Northern Trust, and two top 25′s with a T-20 at the Transitions and a T-11th at the Shell Houston Open.
Rory McIlroy – Trending steady. This was a tough one for me to judge… a very lackluster couple of months where Rory would card only one top-20 finish in 5 events, with a missed cut at the Shell Houston Open, the Masters, and the Players Championship. But I took into account that he was playing injured earlier in the season with a bad back, and winning at Quail Hollow was a serious turnaround. I think things are only going to get better for the young Irishman as the season continues.
Tim Clark – Trending upward. We could consider that he has a second-place finish and 4 top 10′s total. But we don’t have to. His win at the Players Championship was simply amazing. The guy just got the biggest win of his career three weeks ago, so there’s no way his stock is down. Now that he’s got the first PGA Tour win monkey off of his shoulder, I suspect we’ll see him win again, and probably sooner rather than later. He’s that steady.
Adam Scott – Trending upward. Adam’s win at the Valero Texas Open was huge. He finished T-17th at the WGC Accenture Matchplay, finished T-14th at the Shell Houston Open, and then finished T-18th at Augusta. It would appear that he’s finally breaking out of his slump, and given the degree of the drought that he was in the midst of, it’s significant enough to boost his stock considerably.
Jason Day – Trending steady. Too early to tell if his win last week at the Byron Nelson Championship will energize his confidence, but it was significant enough to upgrade his stock just a tad. He has two other top 25 finishes, one of which was at Bay Hill. Gotta at least give him the benefit of the doubt, you have to win once before you can win twice.
Top 25 in World Golf Rankings as of 5/24/2010
1. Tiger Woods
2. Phil Mickelson
3. Lee Westwood
4. Steve Stricker
5. Jim Furyk
6. Ian Poulter
7. Ernie Els
8. Paul Casey
9. Rory McIlroy
10. Anthony Kim
11. Martin Kaymer
12. Robert Allenby
13. Luke Donald
14. Padraig Harrington
15. Camilo Villegas
16. Retief Goosen
17. Geoff Ogilvy
18. Hunter Mahan
19. Lucas Glover
20. Y.E. Yang
21. Tim Clark
22. Henrik Stenson
23. Sean O’Hair
24. Charl Schwartzel
25. Kenny Perry
2010 Ryder Cup Standings
1. Phil Mickelson, 4,901.249 points
2. Anthony Kim, 3,238.309 points
3. Jim Furyk, 2,875.782 points
4. Lucas Glover, 2,836.809 points
5. Hunter Mahan, 2,509.433 points
6. Steve Stricker, 2,416.807 points
7. Dustin Johnson, 2,375.015 points
8. Stewart Cink, 2,026.667 points
9. Ben Crane, 1,992.689 points
10. Matt Kuchar, 1,978.688 points
Tags: 2010 PGA Tour Winners, PGA Tour, PGA Tour Golf, Ryder Cup Standings, World Golf Rankings
