Posted by Jason Sobel
I spoke with my dad -- a casual observer of PGA Tour golf -- on Sunday morning and he wanted to know if the final round would be worth watching.
What's the tournament this week?
The Zurich Classic of New Orleans.
Is Tiger playing?
No, he's not.
How about Phil?
Nope.
Who's winning?
Nick Watney, by two strokes over Ken Duke.
Oh. Never heard of 'em.
Not surprised. In fact, I'll bet the only guy on the leaderboard you know is Mark Calcavecchia. Uh, you do know who Mark Calcavecchia is, right?
Yes.
You're still not going to watch, are you?
Eh, probably not.
Chances are, Watney's first career victory on Sunday will be met with a resounding, "eh," by folks outside of the hardcore audience. It's not surprising, really. For a tournament that was mostly devoid of superstars and coincided with the NBA playoffs, the NHL playoffs, and a full slate of early-season baseball games, the Zurich was certainly on the back burner of most sports fans' minds.
But we should all be paying close attention to the champion -- and the nice little streak that's hit the PGA Tour recently.
One of the questions I get asked most often is, "When are some young American golfers going to step up?" Well, the correct answer seems to be, "right now."
Watney, just three days shy of his 26th birthday, became the youngest American to win on tour since D.J. Trahan took last year's Southern Farm Bureau Classic. He was joined in the top-10 at TPC-Louisiana by a quintet of fellow twenty-something American-born players (Anthony Kim, 21; John Mallinger, 27; Bubba Watson, 28; Chris Stroud, 25; and Lucas Glover, 27), with three more studs (Ryan Moore, 24, Sean O'Hair, 24 and John Merrick, 25) just off the pace.
Depending on your definition of "young," Watney also continued a streak of "young" Americans winning tournaments, started by Zach Johnson, 31, at the Masters and continued by Boo Weekley, 33, at the Verizon Heritage. Charley Hoffman, 30, and Charles Howell III, 27, each won tour events earlier in the season.
We've also seen up-and-coming players like Jeff Quinney, Brandt Snedeker and Robert Garrigus go low in recent weeks and relative youngsters such as Arron Oberholser, Brett Wetterich, Ben Curtis, J.J. Henry, John Rollins, Will MacKenzie, Eric Axley and Troy Matteson have all won a title within the past year.
That's 25 different names I just mentioned in the last three paragraphs alone.
You may still be asking where the young American golfers are, but I'll keep wondering where they aren't.
Watney's win signified another step in the right direction. Hope you were watching, Dad.
