Tour Insider

It's a tough racket, the PGA Tour

By Tim Rosaforte
GolfDigest.com exclusive

Golf World's Tim Rosaforte contributes a weekly "Tour Insider" column for GolfDigest.com

(April 24) -- It's a tough league, professional golf. Sergio Garcia was talking about it last week in Spain. You go 19 months without a win, like he has, and you're an underachiever. "Just because you do not win, it does not mean you are a bad player," the 21-year-old Spaniard said. "Is Davis Love a bad player? I forget how many seconds he has, but it is a lot. Of course, it is all about winning. I know that. I accept that. But I have plenty of time."

Not everybody has the time Garcia has. Take Hal Sutton for example. He turns 43 this weekend, and as fullback tough as he is, it took 365 days before a victory would come his way. From the Greensboro Open on April 23, 2000, until the Shell Houston Open on April 22, 2001, Sutton was winless. He contended, but he couldn't take it to where Tiger Woods had 10 times worldwide in the same time frame. It's a tough league.

Lee Janzen's another guy who can relate to what Garcia was saying. He used to be The Terminator. Won two U.S. Opens. Won a Players Championship when 5-under was the winning score. Won at Westchester. Now he can't close the deal. Shot 73 on Sunday this past weekend in Houston when 73 was under par for the field. His problem was that Sutton decided to stick that square jaw out and get it. His 69 was one of the year's best rounds under pressure. To come up big again, Janzen's got to start playing better on Sunday. It's a tough league.

Butch Harmon was talking about it on Sunday at Augusta, after his guy out-willed Phil Mickelson and David Duval to win his fourth straight major. "When you think about it, we had 92 guys when we started this tournament," he said of the Masters. "There were 91 losers and one winner. This is a brutal game. And this happens every week in this sport."

Look at what Ernie Els went through last year. In a world without Tiger, he might have swept both Opens. He was T-2 at Pebble Beach and St. Andrews, tied for the silver medals with Miguel Angel Jiminez in California and Thomas Bjorn in Scotland. He had two other runner-up finishes, both times to Tiger. He has not won a stroke play event on the PGA Tour since the Nissan Open at the start of the 1999 season. He did win the International last August in a Modified Stableford scoring format. He is one of three or four players with the talent to hang with Tiger. Yet he can't seem to get it done the way he did at Oakmont and Congressional, where he won his U.S. Opens.

Since Garcia mentioned it, let's throw Love in here, too. One win in what ... three years? Justin Leonard has posted the same numbers. For Tom Lehman, it's one win since the 1996 Tour Championship. For Duval, it's one win since the 1999 BellSouth Classic. For Mickelson, it's an 0-for-35 run in major championships. For Colin Montgomerie, it's been 0-for-the-United States. And these are some of the best players in the world.

The standards are different now. There's only one Tiger Woods. Only one guy who's 25, with no wife, no kids, no health problems, an obsession with greatness and an insatiable work appetite. It's a tough league even without Tiger. Factor in that he's won six-of-17 majors 27-of-98 tour events since turning pro, and that doesn't leave much for the rest of the guys. Like Sergio said in El Saler, just because you do not win, it does not mean you are a bad player.

It just means that historically you are not a truly great one. At the present time, there is only one of those around.

How come nobody is writing that Karrie Webb is in a slump? It's been 10 events since the 2000 Player of the Year won an official LPGA event. She's got three second-place finishes in 2001, and hasn't played in a month. Annika is waiting. So is Se Ri, who has shaken off the sophomore slump with two wins in 2001.

Doug Tewell has two major championship victories on the Senior Tour. Larry Nelson has none. Of course, neither has Bruce Fleisher, who won his 12th tournament last Sunday. Next up for Tewell, the PGA Seniors' Championship, a tournament he won last April at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. The oldest of the senior majors goes on the road this year to Ridgewood CC on May 24.

It's never too early to start thinking Ryder Cup, and I don't care what he did on Sunday at the Shell Houston Open, I hope Joe Durant makes the U.S. team, and I want Mark Calcavecchia and Brad Faxon on the squad at the Belfry. They need some retribution. I was also happy to see the Little Bulldog, Justin Leonard, pick up some points and move up to 20th place in the standings. I don't care how he's hitting it. He made the putt at Brookline.

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