ESPN Golf Blog

Posted by Jason Sobel

After Tiger Woods claimed that historic victory on one leg at the U.S. Open, after he clinched a record of four wins in six starts, after it was announced he would miss the remainder of the season, I wrote that Woods would easily win the PGA Tour's 2008 Player of the Year award unless one of the following three things were to happen:

• Masters champion Trevor Immelman would win either another major or, possibly, a handful of other big-time events.
• Players Championship winner Sergio Garcia would win a major and take advantage of Tiger's absence with a five- or six-win season.
• The same player would win each of the year's final two major titles.

You know what happened. Neither Immelman nor Garcia held up his end of the deal, but Padraig Harrington made the third premise a reality by sweeping the final two legs of the major championship schedule with wins at the British Open and PGA Championship. And so I found myself shortly after the second of those victories defending Harrington as my choice for POY in a close contest over Woods -- the season's final two months notwithstanding.

There was further debate after the final event of the year, and even more in the past week before the PGA Tour made Harrington's selection official on Tuesday. Through it all, I defended my choice of Harrington, often citing the 1998 race, when David Duval was the most consistent player and led the money list, but Mark O'Meara won two majors (Masters and British Open) and earned the Jack Nicklaus Award.

I must say, though, that with each time I clicked on a message board or conversation page, I grew more doubtful of whether my decision was right -- "right" in this case meaning both the best choice and the eventual correct answer. Those who backed Tiger made a compelling case for his candidacy, including a .667 winning percentage and that superhuman effort at Torrey Pines. And, of course, they all pointed out that Harrington's two major wins came without a certain No. 1-ranked player in the field.

While reading these arguments, I became more worried about making the best selection possible than coming to the same conclusion as a majority of PGA Tour professionals who would decide the winner. And yet, ironically, it wasn't until I traded text messages with a current player late last week that I really felt confident in the man I had been touting since August.

Me: Who got your POY vote?
Player: Harrington.
Me: I agree. Think he'll win?
Player: No other good candidates.
Me: Uh, TW?
Player: 6 tournaments is not a year.

He was right. If we could extrapolate Woods' season for three more months, if the knee injury were to have simply subsided and he continued right on playing, there is no doubt in my mind that Tiger would have won the award without contention. But this isn't the coulda-woulda-shoulda prize, and players can't be rewarded for projected results.

Nor should others be penalized for winning tournaments that didn't include certain players. You say Harrington didn't win his majors with Woods in the field? I say neither did Jack Nicklaus. Does that mean all 18 of his are any less valuable?

The players got it right in granting the award to Harrington, who, in addition to the two majors, earned four other top-10s in 15 total starts. He also earned his second consecutive European Tour POY this year. Although I continually used the '98 race as an example, however, another award from the same time period may serve as the best parallel to this year's vote.

Reigning and four-time NBA MVP Michael Jordan averaged his usual 29.6 points per game in the 1996-97 season while eventually leading the Chicago Bulls to another championship. Although he may have deserved the award for a fifth time, voters were looking for any reason not to give it to the ol' standby, and that reason turned out to be Karl Malone, whose play was just good enough that it warranted more votes than MJ, perhaps simply because it would allow for a fresh name to grace the record books.

Maybe the same thing happened to Woods this season. Since becoming a full-time PGA Tour member in 1997, Tiger had captured the POY award in every year except 1998 (O'Meara) and 2004 (Vijay Singh). His peers might not have consciously decided to vote against him, but given a reason to choose someone else, they jumped at it.

Of course, we'll never know how many of them voted against -- or for -- Woods.

In an inane display of undiminished secrecy, the PGA Tour refuses to reveal voting results for its end-of-season awards. Never mind that every other major sport reveals these numbers; it's something the tour just won't disclose. Does it take away from the final result? Absolutely. After all, how much less dramatic would this year's Heisman Trophy vote have been if we knew only that Sam Bradford won without being informed of just how close Colt McCoy and Tim Tebow came?

Hell, even presidential elections -- and every other government vote -- own a tally that becomes instantaneous public knowledge even while the proceedings are still taking place. Not the PGA Tour's awards, though, meaning we'll forever remain in the dark as to whether Harrington won in a landslide or Woods came within a few votes of his 10th career POY.

Whatever the case, I'm still convinced that the players were correct in choosing Harrington. Woods' exploits may have been more compelling, more memorable and more incredible, but like that player told me, six tournaments is not a year.

Jason Sobel is a golf writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at Jason.Sobel@espn3.com.