Posted by Jason Sobel
The problem with major championships for the world's top golfers is that, simply, there just aren't that many of them. Consider there are only four per year, and that many top-level players only have a finite number of years in which their games will peak. Add to it the fact that Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson will apparently grab their fair share of titles, and you can see just how limited the opportunities are.
The result is that more players are feeling more pressure, and more often.
The PGA Championship isn't called "Glory's Last Shot" for nothing. For those golfers who aren't named Woods, Mickelson or Ogilvy, there's only one more chance to sniff a major championship this season. Let's take a look at the players who may be feeling the collars of their golf shirts tightening just a bit.
• Vijay Singh. He's still the world's third-ranked golfer, but coming off a week in which seemingly every other elite player was vying for a spot on the leaderboard, he was forced to log some range time after missing the cut. Singh owns three career major wins, but he's 43 (4 months older than Colin Montgomerie!) and has been showing signs of slowing down this season. You've got to wonder whether Vijay's got another big one in the bag.
• Chris DiMarco. Three runner-up finishes in the last eight majors is all well and good, but DiMarco can only be called gritty, gutty and fearless so many times. Back when Mickelson was making a career out of close-but-no-cigar major results, he was oft-criticized for failing to come through in the clutch. How many times will we see DiMarco's name at No. 2 on a major leaderboard before he starts receiving the same type of treatment?
• Ernie Els and Retief Goosen. Let's pair the buddies from South Africa together, considering they're in essentially the same boat. Like Singh, each is a multiple major winner with nothing left to prove in his career. Then again, when it comes to leaving a legacy, it helps to have as many majors as possible. With zero PGA Tour wins between them so far this season, each should be pretty disappointed with the way things have turned out so far in '06.
• One-hit wonders. Davis Love III, Fred Couples, Jim Furyk and David Toms are some of the better golfers of their generation, but each has only one major title to his credit. When it comes to post-career rewards like World Golf Hall of Fame inductions, this may not cut it. You've got to think both Furyk and Toms have plenty of good years left in 'em, but time may be running out for the pursuits of Love and Couples.
• First-timers and twenty-somethings. Geoff Ogilvy salvaged this group when the 29-year-old won his first career major at the U.S. Open, joining Ben Curtis as the only current players under 30 with a major to their credit. Sure, guys like Sergio Garcia, Adam Scott and Luke Donald still have 15-20 years of major opportunities and you've got to think each one -- based on talent level alone -- will win multiple majors in his career. But at what point do they really start feeling the heat? The guess here is that Donald feels nominal pressure, Scott senses a bit more and Garcia is still talking it out on a couch somewhere.
Some other post-British Open quick thoughts:
• It didn't take long for Woods to continue the tradition of text-messaging buddy Annika Sorenstam after his most recent major win. The U.S. Women's Open champion reported she received a message from Tiger on Sunday afternoon, though she wouldn't reveal what it said. "He let me know that he won another major," Sorenstam said, "in case I didn't know." It's become a post-major victory ritual that began last year for the two friends, who have now combined for 21 major wins (11 for Tiger, 10 for Annika). After Sorenstam triumphed at the LPGA Championship, she presented Woods with a text message that simply read: "9-9." When Woods broke the deadlock months later at the British Open, he reportedly taunted back with the message: "I've got 10." With the Women's British Open coming up next week, you can bet Annika will have her buddy on speed dial if she's leading coming down the stretch.
• I have officially jumped from the David Howell bandwagon. Actually, I think I fell off when it stopped short on Friday, as the Order of Merit leader missed the cut at the Open. Entering the week, the Englishman was noted by so many pundits as an underrated guy to watch that he had in fact become overrated, a fact mentioned by GolfDigest.com's John Antonini in his "The Skinny" preview column. Though he leads the European Tour money list with a pair of victories this season -- including one in China during which he held off Woods in the final round -- Howell has also taken PGA Tour status this year and hasn't fared too well. After reaching the quarterfinals of the Accenture Match Play Championship in his season debut, he's played in seven stroke-play events without finishing better than T-12. The world's 11th-ranked golfer should be better than that.
• And lastly, thank you to all of those e-mailers who wrote to remind me of the "Why Tiger Woods Won't Win the British Open" piece I penned prior to the tournament. Like I would have forgotten about it otherwise. My No. 1 theory on picking against TW last week was that the course was an unknown (he had never played it before his pretournament rounds) and didn't suit his game. By only hitting driver once in four days, Woods basically agreed with that assessment, but radically changed his strategy and still won the tournament. Let's just say I didn't see that one coming. Sure, I was mistaken -- been wrong before and I'll be wrong again -- but the theory behind it wasn't that far off.
