Hooked On Golf Blog

A look back at 2010 – The Golf World

2010 was a hell of a year on many levels. I’m going to break it down into three categories: The Golf World, HOG and Personal. Today’s post will be The Golf World category.

Man did a lot of amazing things happen in the 2010 golf world!? There are so many threads to the Tiger Woods story, which by every account on nearly every golf media outlet, was the biggest story of the year.

Not a lot of fist pumps in 2010 for TW.

Tiger Woods

Here’s a quick bullet list of all that which comprises the Tiger story for 2010, in no particular order. I’m sure I’m missing something, but these are straight out of my cerebral cortex:

The Tiger Woods divorce.
The big televised apology.
Sponsors dropping Tiger, resulting in an estimated $48 million drop in earnings for TW.
The mistresses and all of their whackiness, trying to find some way of milking TW or whoever else’s tit they could suckle.
Tiger loses #1 ranking to Lee Westwood, on Halloween.
Tiger plays the entire calendar year of 2010 without a win.
Tiger on another losing Ryder Cup team.
Tiger changes putters from the Scotty Cameron to the Nike Method.
Tiger’s return at The Masters. I watched him on the Tuesday practice round.
Tiger records worst 18 hole score of his professional career.
Tiger’s coach Hank Haney resigns, clarifying that it was his decision and not Tiger’s.
Guy tries to sell Tiger’s Titleist irons on ebay for $250,000.
Tail of the Tiger golf balls come out, creator sued by TW mistresses.
Tiger fails to qualify for the Tour Championship.
Though he doesn’t typically play it anyway, he doesn’t qualify for the Hyundai Championship (formerly The Mercedes) in Hawaii.
Tiger posts his first twitter tweet.
New photos of Tiger Woods home are released, complete with golf practice facility in the back yard.

Dustin Johnson had a tough, but great year

Dustin Johnson

Dustin Johnson had two majors in the palm of his hands but couldn’t seal the deal. He had a three shot lead on Sunday at the US OPEN but eventually lost that by going triple-bogey, double-bogey (including a shanked chip), to eventual winner Graeme McDowell.

PGA Championship’s “Bunker Gate” was one of the craziest finishes I’ve seen in a major championship. The grounding of the club by DJ on that 18th hole approach which cost him a penalty and a spot in the playoff was mind boggling.

Later DJ won the BMW during the FedEx Cup playoffs.

Furyk won the FedEx Cup and all the cash

Jim Furyk

Jim Furyk was steady Eddie all year, and proved that the tortoise wins the race. Despite being DQ’d for missing a pro-am after sleeping in, Jim won the FedEx cup and the $10 million prize. Hey Jim, got any spare cash I can borrow?

Ryder Cup

As I predicted, the USA Ryder Cup team lost to Europe. At the end, it turned out to be a closer match than I anticipated and the finish was exciting. Hunter Mahan felt the pressure and didn’t perform as well as he wanted, and in the post round interviews was so shaken up that he couldn’t really talk.

Two 59’s This Year

Stuart Appleby (comeback player of the year) shot a 59 at the Old White course, Greenbriar Classic. Paul Goydos also shot a 59 at the John Deer.

Jail Time For Jim Thorpe

Champions Tour player Jim Thorpe was jailed for tax evasion.

33/1 odds to win the money title a 2nd year in a row

Matt Kuchar

Matt Kuchar won the money title with a great surge at the end of the season. I vividly remember standing behind Matt on #15 at Augusta last April. Fun stuff.

Ian Poulter

Poulter won is first tournament on US soil thanks to a spectacular short game display.

Puerto Rico Open

I attended the PGA Tour’s Puerto Rico Open, hung out with a bunch of PGA Tour guys and shot a lot of photos. Gained a new respect his raw talent when I followed around John Daly.

JD's pants were the story

John Daly

Speaking of John Daly, it seems like JD’s pants were more of a story than his golf game in 2010.

Lorena Ochoa

In a very surprising and unexpected event, #1 LPGA player Lorena Ochoa retired in her prime.

The Masters

I attend my first Masters practice round with my dad my son and my best friend. My group shoots over 1100 photos of Augusta National and the Masters! What a great experience.

Phil Mickelson won the 2010 Masters.

Phil Mickelson

Speaking of Phil, he had the chance to gain the #1 world ranking but faded a bit in the latter half of the season. It was then revealed that Phil was diagnosed with severe psoriatic arthritis.

Cobra

Acushnet sells Cobra to Puma.