Tiger Wins Player of the Year. Is That News?

When I was in journalism school, we were told that one of the most important tasks of a journalist was to distinguish between what is, and is not, news. The acid test was that “Dog Bites Man” is not news; “Man Bites Dog” is.

The PGA Tour’s announcement that Tiger Woods has won the Player of the Year Award falls squarely in the “Dog Bites Man” category. Of COURSE Woods is the player of the year. He has won that award with such stunning regularity (eight of the last ten years) that I think it’s time he retired his name from consideration and gave someone else a chance.

That’s not to take away from the year that Woods just had. In fact, Bobby Jones aside, Tiger may have just had the best year in the history of golf.

Consider: In fifteen PGA Tour start, Tiger won eight times, taking home nearly $10 million dollars. He finished in the top ten in eleven of those.

And his record is actually better than that. In one of those starts, he had to withdraw because of illness; at the US Open, he was still reeling from the death of his father. I give him a bye on that last one.

So by the Golf Blogger count, he won eight of thirteen “real” starts on the Tour.

It’s all, I think, bad news for the rest of the players on Tour. When Tiger is in the field, everyone is playing for second place.