Parity Has Taken Over The PGA Tour
While it certainly cannot be debated that there are some professional golfers who are in a different stratosphere talent – wise than their competition, there is no longer one golfer who is dominating the tour. Through 12 events to date this year, there have been 12 different winners on the tour. It almost seems as if the moment a golfer is on the precipice of leaving the rest of the golfing universe behind, they begin a quick descent back to Earth (see: McIlroy, Rory). That is not to say that they fall off the face of the Earth, never to be heard from again; it simply means that they fail to assert their dominance and fall back somewhat in line with the rest of the field.
Gone are the days of Tiger Woods winning everything that wasn’t nailed down. The major championships, along with the FedEx Cup are also up for grabs. Since 2008, the FedEx Cup has been won by 4 different golfers (2011 – Bill Haas, 2010 – Jim Furyk, 2009 – Tiger Woods, 2008 – Vijay Singh). The parity is just as evident in the majors (The Masters, U.S. Open, PGA Championship and The Open Championship). Below is a breakdown of all of the winners since 2008.
| Masters | U.S. Open | Open Championship | PGA | |
| 2011 | Charl Schwartzel | Rory McIlroy | Darren Clarke | Keegan Bradley |
| 2010 | Phil Mickeslon | Graeme McDowell | Louis Oosthuizen | Martin Kaymer |
| 2009 | Angel Cabrera | Lucas Glover | Stewart Cink | YE Yang |
| 2008 | Trevor Immelman | Tiger Woods | Padraig Harrington | Padraig Harrington |
That makes 15 different winners from 6 different countries to win the 16 major championships, with Pardraig Harrington being the only person to win multiple majors in that time. And both of those came in 2008.
The question that begs to be asked is whether or not this level of parity is good for golf? Is it better to have one person take control of the sport and become a household name (see: Woods, Tiger), or is it better to have 15 different major championship winners in 16 events? The one thing that the PGA Tour has going for it is the fact that, despite the parity, there have been some incredible story lines that have made their way into the news feeds of the casual and non-observers.
In my opinion, as long as there continue to be good storylines that can crossover into mainstream media, the parity we are now seeing is great for the game of golf. Tiger’s always going to be in the news, Rory keeps popping up all over the place, and the influx of young talent has exponentially increased the presence of the PGA Tour on social media platforms. All of these things have the possibility of drawing new fans to the game of golf, regardless if that person can tell you who Louis Oosthuizen is…or if they can even pronounce his name.
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