Openflows Golf Journal

Awesome foursome: Tiger, Vijay, Els, and Mickelson

Monday April 04th 2005, 9:50 am
Filed under: General, Tournaments

As the heat turns up on the race to be the World’s number one ranked golfer, comparisons are being drawn between the guys at the top today, and the three greats of Palmer, Nicklaus, and Player who used to battle head-to-head-to-head a few decades ago.

There’s an interesting article published by Newsday that gets into this comparison and analysis. To quote:

Any given Sunday can turn out like the one four weeks ago, one that was four decades in the making. Tiger Woods beat Phil Mickelson in an eardrum-rattling final pairing at the Ford Championship, with Vijay Singh right behind them, tied for third because of a balky putter. Only a few hours earlier, Ernie Els sank a 23-foot eagle putt on the 18th hole to win a European Tour event in Dubai.

That foreshadowed the Masters and the entire season: This is a big year because of the Big Four.

Woods, Mickelson, Singh and Els — in whatever order they happen to fall on a particular week — are giving golf the old what-for.

Publicly, their attitude is, “Big Four? Big deal.” They say no one should overlook Retief Goosen, an elite (yet bland) player who won the U.S. Open last June at Shinnecock Hills. Or they imply they don’t want anything to do with the whole thing. And aside from the friendship between Els and Singh, they really don’t want anything to do with each other.