Will the 2003 PGA Player of the Year Please Stand Up?

Aug. 18, 2003 - The PGA Tour's Player of the Year award was there for the taking. If any of the top 5 candidates had won the PGA Championship, they could feel confident about being named Player of the Year. But none of the top 5 did, and so the Player of the Year race remains the closest it's been since Tiger Woods showed up on the scene.

The top five candidates are Jim Furyk, Davis Love III, Kenny Perry, Mike Weir and Tiger Woods. There are 14 full field tournaments remaining following the PGA Championship, and the player among these five who performs best over the closing stretch will likely win Player of the Year.

It's quite possible that we could reach the Tour Championship in early November with the winner still a toss-up.

Below are two charts comparing the top five candidates. The first shows wins, second-place, third-place and top 10 finishes, plus rankings for money winnings and scoring average (all stats are through the PGA Championship).

The second shows each of the player's performance in the majors this year.

	1st	2nd	3rd	Top 10	Money	Scoring
Jim Furyk	2	1	1	13	5	4
Davis Love III	4	1	-	7	1	7
Kenny Perry	3	1	1	10	6	6
Mike Weir	3	-	4	9	4	t2
Tiger Woods	4	1	-	8	2	1

Source: PGATour.com; stats through the PGA Championship

	Masters	U.S. Open	British	PGA
Jim Furyk	4	1	MC	t18
Davis Love III	t15	MC	t4	MC
Kenny Perry	t39	t3	t7	t10
Mike Weir	1	t3	t28	t7
Tiger Woods	t15	t20	t4	t39

Source: PGATour.com; stats through the PGA Championship

So following the PGA Championship, Davis Love led in money and was tied for the lead in wins ... but missed the cut in two of the four majors. Tiger Woods was tied for the lead in wins and led in scoring, but failed to win a major. Jim Furyk had only two wins, but one was the U.S. Open and he had more Top 10s than anyone else.

Mike Weir won the Masters, but wasn't ahead of the others in any of the categories examined. Kenny Perry had a breakout season and was strong in all categories.

And this group of five doesn't comprise all the candidates, only the best candidates following the PGA Championship. What if Ernie Els (2 wins, 7 Top 10s) or Vijay Singh (2 wins 3 seconds, 10 Top 10s) wins a couple tournaments before the end of the season?

One thing I will venture a guess at: The award will be given to someone other than Tiger Woods unless Woods wins a couple more times to lock it up. Tiger will need to be the clear and obvious choice to win in order to counteract the desire among many to see a new name get the award.

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