Professional golf, strange year

It was also one of those strange years.

What a weird year it’s been in professional golf.

Sure, Tiger Woods won six tournaments after reconstructive knee surgery a year ago June, but he didn’t win a major. That’s news in itself for Woods, whose biggest goal by far is to surpass Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 major wins. Woods, poor fellow, has stalled for the moment at 14 majors.

Meanwhile, Phil Mickelson just did the unthinkable, or at least something he’d yet to do. He won a tournament by taking down Woods in the final group for the first time in his career. Mickelson did that in winning the World Golf Championships-HSBC Championship in Shanghai, China at the Sheshan International course.

It had been more than four years since Woods and Mickelson were in the last group together on a Sunday. That was at the WGC tournament at the Doral Resort in Miami, back in 2005. Woods started the round two shots behind Mickelson and won the tournament by one shot over him. This time things were different, even though neither golfer lit up the course in the last round.

Mickelson shot 69 after starting the final round two shots ahead of Woods, whose 72 pushed him back to sixth place. “Nothing came easy,”

Mickelson said. “I didn’t hit it great.”

He didn’t have to as he won his fourth tournament of the year. Like Woods, none of his wins was a major. Woods and Mickelson are the two best players in the world, and as many tournaments as they’ve won, collectively, this year, a season without a major is a season missing what really matters.

Meanwhile, do you remember who won the majors? Each champion can be considered a surprise, although not to the same degree: Angel Cabrera in the Masters; Lucas Glover at the U.S. Open; Stewart Cink at the Open Championship; and Y.E. Yang in the PGA Championship, when he was the one who hit the big shots down the stretch, not Woods, with whom he was playing.

So what does this all mean for next year? The short answer, and probably the most honest one, is who knows? But Mickelson and Woods have set things up nicely. It has to be good for the game that Mickelson has been winning regularly and that Woods did win six times and will be hungry for his 15th major. Very hungry.

Mickelson said after his HSBC win that he’s not only excited about 2010, but “I have very high expectations.” Why wouldn’t he? He won the big Tour Championship, his last tournament of the year in the U.S., in September, and now he’s beaten Woods and many other elite players, including Ernie Els and Rory McIlroy, in China.

Woods, meanwhile, will play this week in the Australian Masters at the splendid Kingston Heath course in Melbourne, and then will host and play in the Chevron World Challenge Dec. 3-6 at the Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, Calif. He could win both, but he’ll surely already be thinking about and preparing for next April’s Masters.

Woods was barely off the course in the last round of the HSBC when he was looking forward, rather than backward, and that he just wanted to “get out of here.” Asked if there was anything wrong with his game, he said, “No, just one of those days.”

Tiger woods' Masters

Challenge Resides Opportunity