The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Super season ends with super hard vote
ATLANTA >> A season like no other in PGA Tour history ended with a one-of-a-kind feat. Over the final two weeks, Patrick Cantlay won the FedEx Cup by beating the U.S. Open champions.
Both of them.
This was called a “super season” because the shifting schedule brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the U.S. Open and Masters deeper into 2020, after the new PGA Tour season had already started. That meant six majors in one season.
By numbers alone, the 50 tournaments were two more than the previous virus-free season, three fewer than next season by attrition. It leads to a super hard decision for players voting on PGA Tour player of the year.
Majors typically are the standard of a great year. Three major champions of this super season are not even on the ballot — Masters champions Dustin Johnson and Hideki Matsuyama, and PGA champion Phil Mickelson — because that’s the only PGA Tour event they won.
That leaves Cantlay and the two U.S. Open champions he beat, Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, along with British Open champion Collin Morikawa and Harris English.
The PGA Tour will reveal the winner, not the margin. Also unknown is what percentage of PGA Tour members even vote.
Long ago, there was a curious choice for rookie of the year with the vote going to Rickie Fowler over Rory McIlroy. Neither reached the Tour Championship, but McIlroy won a tournament. Johnson was asked what he thought and replied: “That’s a tough one. I’m not sure who I’m going to vote for.” This was a day after the result was announced.
So there’s that, and he’s certainly not alone.
Sometimes the vote is easy, such as Johnson last season when he won three times, captured the FedEx Cup and was runner-up in the only major played.
And there are times when the result could be viewed as a referendum on what’s important to the players who vote.