Tour News

Woods wins 11th Player of the Year Award

Published

13 years ago

Sep 27, 2013

Tiger Woods didn’t win a major in 2013, but his five wins including golf’s “fifth major,” The Players Championship, were enough for him to be voted the PGA Tour’s Player of the Year.

Woods played in 16 PGA Tour events in 2013, winning five tournaments: The Farmers Insurance Open, the WGC-Cadillac Championship, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, The Players Championship and the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. While his five wins were three more than any other player, the quality of Woods’ wins has been widely debated in recent weeks. He has won the Farmers Insurance Open seven times in his career, and the Arnold Palmer Invitational and WGC-Bridgestone Invitational each eight times. Those three events accounts for nearly 30 percent of his 79 career PGA Tour wins.

Player of the Year nominee Phil Mickelson, on the other hand, broke through for his fifth-career major victory at a tournament that few experts expected him to ever win, the British Open. He did so after a heart-breaking sixth runner-up finish at the U.S. Open in June, where he finished two shots behind Justin Rose. Mickelson also won the week before the British Open at the Scottish Open, and while it doesn’t count as an official PGA Tour win, it marked his first win on European soil. And at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, Mickelson recorded the second-lowest round of the year, a 60 in Round 1, in route to victory.

Also in the running for Player of the Year was Henrik Stenson, who like Mickelson had two PGA Tour wins in 2013. Both of Stenson’s wins came in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs. He won the Deutsche Bank Championship and Tour Championship to win the season-long FedEx Cup title and its $10 million bonus. But the Swede’s hot streak began well before the FedEx Cup. Since March, Stenson has had six other top-10 finishes: the Arnold Palmer Invitational (T8), the Shell Houston Open (2), The Players (T5), the British Open (2), the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational (T2) and the PGA Championship (3).

It appears that it’s “all about the W,” as Woods like to say, when it comes to the Player of the Year award. With the exception of 2008, when Padraig Harrington won two major championships, the PGA Tour players who vote on the Player of the Year Award have selected the golfer with the most wins or tied for the most wins as Player of the Year every year since 1999.

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9 Comments

OVER THE TOP GOLF

Oct 3, 2013 at 5:29 pm

No question that Woods deserves the award even though I’m sure it seems like a dismal year to him.

Reply Report comment
Roddy

Sep 28, 2013 at 5:48 am

If it was anyone else but Tiger there would be no debate about it. 5 wins deserves to get player of the year. Just cause he didnt win a major doesnt mean it was a bad year. By his standards maybe it’s not what he wants, but for the rest of the golfing world that is a very good year.

Reply Report comment
- Steve
  
  Sep 28, 2013 at 1:09 pm
  
  This is exactly it. His standards are higher than everyone else’s. Anyone else with 5 wins would be ecstatic and easily be player of the year over people with 2 wins (unless BOTH were majors, then we might have an argument), but Tiger would trade those 5 for 1 major.
  
  Reply Report comment
naflack

Sep 28, 2013 at 3:12 am

pretty impressive that he didnt win a major, which by his own previous standards is somewhat disappointing…and still is voted player of the year by his peers.

Reply Report comment
- Tom
  
  Sep 28, 2013 at 10:38 am
  
  The PGA face is Tiger Woods. Tigers counterparts know this. They also know that when Tiger plays a tournament the course attendance and viewers goes up, that equates to $$$$. It’s this way in all sports from soccer to tennis and football. Sad that it comes to this and not just the love of a team or the sport itself.
  
  Reply Report comment
Jack

Sep 27, 2013 at 10:06 pm

Quality of wins debated? That’s only if he starts playing against fields which don’t field the top talent on tour. If he plays against a full field of the best players, what’s to question? I though debate whether he should have won, but Stenson didn’t really play well for the entire season, only the latter half.

Reply Report comment
- Matt
  
  Sep 28, 2013 at 12:58 am
  
  Jack I believe the quality of winds debate is in regards to the fact that Tiger doesn’t seem to be able to bring his game anymore accept on those few select courses he’s very comfortable on and plays every year. The one exception being the players where he traditionally doesn’t play that well minus the one other win. Nevertheless 5 wins is 5 wins and pretty hard not to give him the player of the year award.
  
  Reply Report comment
Brock

Sep 27, 2013 at 10:30 am

Stenson won the Deutsche Bank Championship, not the BMW (Zach Johnson).

Reply Report comment
- Zak Kozuchowski
  
  Sep 27, 2013 at 10:49 am
  
  You’re right
  
  Reply Report comment

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