Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson dominate top 25 golf stories of 2013

The 2013 golf season was about as eventful and chaotic as it gets, particularly in a year where Tiger Woods doesn’t win a major. Trimming the list (and sometimes getting creative) to 25 stories that defined the year was a challenge, but slotting in the No. 1 story of the season was not.

At the game’s biggest event, the most divisive and renowned athlete in the world came upon what many, at the time, felt was the most important crossroads in his career. For a 20-hour stretch, we were captivated by a complex case of the application of golf rules, and then larger debates about the integrity and career reputation of the most dominant and famous player in the history of the game. Phil Mickelson’s charging Sunday round at The Open will be legendary but the illegal drop, and subsequent disqualification debate, involving Tiger Woods at the Masters is the No. 1 story on our 2013 countdown.

When Phil Mickelson stepped onto the 13th tee at Muirfield on Sunday at The Open, he appeared to be six holes away from a respectable finish and a long flight back to California. Instead, he proceeded to author what is likely the best six-hole stretch of his career.

He was 1-over for the tournament at the time, three strokes off the lead. Mickelson had managed to avoid disaster up to that point and remain on the fringe of contention. Still, he was an afterthought. In order to become a serious contender he’d need to dominate the hardest stretch of the course, something he failed to do during the first three rounds. Mickelson’s game isn’t suited for success on a links course, especially one playing as brutally hard as Muirfield was during the 2013 Open Championship.

Aside from Tiger Woods, the biggest obstacle standing in Tiger Woods’ way of breaking Jack Nicklaus’ majors record is now Adam Scott.

For a decade, Scott was hailed as the next superstar Australian golfer. He was the heir to Greg Norman, and was predicted to become one of Tiger’s great challengers in the second half of his career. After Scott won the Players Championship in 2004, it appeared that plan was on track and he would soon be a major winner and take up permanent residence inside the top five in the world rankings. Scott picked up a win a year on the PGA Tour from 2003 to 2008, in addition to multiple other victories on the Asian and Euro tours.

Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia took their long-simmering squabble to new heights in 2013, thanks to the “he dissed me” fracas that broke out between the two at The Players Championship and the full-fledged firestorm, complete with racist remarks and the requisite mea culpas, that erupted soon thereafter.

Veteran golf watchers know that Tiger v. Sergio kicked off years ago (a full timeline of their contretemps), with El Nino scissor-kicking and trash-talking his way onto Woods’ enemy list, and the once-and-future No. 1 bludgeoning “Tweety Bird” and falling to his nemesis in the 2006 Ryder Cup.

My personal bias may creep into this entry on our countdown of the top 25 stories of the year in golf, but Angel Cabrera’s approach into the 72nd hole at the Masters was one of the most incredible shots I’ve ever seen in a major championship. It’s been largely lost in the season’s many twists and turns since April, but this year’s Masters was perhaps the most dramatic finish at Augusta since Jack Nicklaus’ win in 1986. Sure, there have been more important and more memorable wins, but that final hour was the perfect ending to one of the more gripping weekends in Masters history.

The finishes by Adam Scott and Cabrera, playing in the back-to-back groups at the end of the tee sheet, left my head spinning and heart racing … and that was before they ever teed it up for extra holes. Scott started things off with what was presumably a green jacket clinching birdie putt, ending his country’s curse and his own personal majors drought. Wielding his broomstick putter, Scott improbably bombed in the lengthy putt to break the tie with Cabrera and get to 9-under for the championship. His reaction, and impromptu “C’mon Aussie!” scream was an image and highlight shared more that the actual winner on the 10th green shortly thereafter.

It was a wild year in golf for a multitude of reasons, but the quality of major winners was perhaps the biggest reason why it was such a great season. There were no flash-in-the-pan major winners, those one-hit wonders like Michael Campbell that a major championship can often produce. All four winners were established world-class players, guys who had been contenders before and on the verge of a career-defining victory.

Adam Scott and Justin Rose, two close friends who had come so close before, took control in the final hour on Sunday at the season’s first two majors to set the tone for the rest of the summer. Rose, who leaned on Scott for major championship advice after the Aussie finally broke through at Augusta, slithered to the top of the leaderboard when almost all the focus was on Phil Mickelson during a marathon weekend at Merion.

The summer was dominated by old hands Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson re-ascending to the top two spots in the world, but the year in golf also featured some new names emerging as superstar personalities, perhaps none bigger than Jason Dufner.

The lumpy deadpan Auburn fanatic had made a dent on the world golf scene before 2013, but this was certainly a breakout year for Dufner. It started with the “Dufnering” meme ignited from a candid shot of a dour Duf sitting like a corpsicle while making an appearance at an elementary school. On the course, however, Dufner pushed his profile to the next level with his first career major win, the PGA Championship at Oak Hill in August.

Tiger Woods enjoyed a five-victory, player-of-the-year 2013 season in which he regained the No. 1 spot in the world and repeatedly praised his overall performance as “pretty damn good.”

On the flip side, Woods flopped in the four grand slam events and ended pitching a shutout in the majors for a fifth straight year. He was also in the spotlight, as he is wherever he is, on or off the course (and deep in Brandel Chamblee’s doghouse), for incurring four high-profile (is there any other way with Tiger?) penalties.

Adam Scott made worldwide headlines when, in April, he became the first Australian to win at Augusta. The 33-year-old winner of 10 official PGA Tour events was less celebrated for becoming the first golfer to win a major with a broomstick putter shoved into his sternum.

Scott, among the players to win four of the past nine major titles with long putters, could also be the last (depending on the outcomes of the eight grand slam events in the next two years) to achieve such a feat with what will soon be a verboten putting style. Keegan Bradley began the barrage on traditionalists’ sensibilities when he captured the 2011 PGA Championship with a belly putter in his bag.

On Oct. 31, 2010 Lee Westwood overtook Tiger Woods for the No. 1 spot in the World Golf Rankings. Some 877 days later, Woods finally regained the top spot in the world.

Other than on paper, being No. 1 in the world doesn’t mean a whole lot. It’s a nice career accomplishment, but it won’t win you tournaments and certainly doesn’t guarantee you’ll win major championships. For Woods, however, reclaiming the No. 1 spot in the world was less about the number next to his name and more about the journey it took to get there.

The year in golf was defined by the two biggest stars of this generation -- Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson -- rising back to the top of the golf world and providing a major story for us to devour almost every month. It’s hard to say anyone had a more eventful season than Tiger, but Phil was right there, creating drama and making headlines throughout the summer months.

At the midpoint of the year, it appeared this would be another season of excruciating close calls for Mickelson. He would re-write his 2013 story in July at Muirfield with a stunning, and relatively unexpected, British Open win. And what made that victory more impressive was that it came on the heels of the crushing second-place finish in the U.S. Open.

The “59 watch” has been put into effect with increasing frequency in recent years, but every time a player on the PGA Tour makes a run at breaking 60, the dynamic of a tournament changes and the buzz on the grounds, and in the media, is blasts off. It’s golf’s magic number, and only five players in the history of the PGA Tour had posted it prior to 2013.

In 2013, Jim Furyk, one of America’s best in a generation, added his name to the list late in the year at the BMW Championship. Furyk’s had a rough-go in recent seasons, known more for some final round failings than his continued contention on almost a monthly basis. At 43 years old, he remains one of the top players in the world and is still able to compete with anyone on Tour. Yet that ability to still contend has been overshadowed by giveaways at the 2012 U.S. Open at Olympic, the 2012 WGC-Bridgestone, and an excruciating Sunday singles loss to Sergio Garcia as part of Team USA’s Medinah meltdown in the Ryder Cup.

Over the last two decades, the Presidents Cup has been unable to get the solid foothold every other fall like the Ryder Cup. Due in large part to the relative noncompetitive nature of the event so far, the Presidents Cup has far less hype and interest than the team competition between the USA and Europe.

In 2013, the 12-man American team rolled over the Internationals once again. Unlike their battles with Europe, the U.S. team often dominates the different two-man formats (Four-ball and Foursomes) in the Presidents Cup. And this year was no different, as Fred Couples’ group made it a laugher by the time Sunday singles rolled around.

Tiger Woods got off to a painful start at the U.S. Open in June when he re-injured his elbow during the rain-delayed first round at Merion Golf Club. Then things went from bad to off the charts on the misery scale for the world No. 1.

Woods proceeded from an opening 3-over 73 to card his worst score in the Open as a professional, a 76, on Saturday. That extremely crooked number led to Tiger’s highest 54-hole Open total (9-over 219), as well as his worst week as a pro in any major.

Inbee Park wrapped up an historic season on the LPGA with two top-5 finishes in the tour’s season-ending events -- the first Player of the Year honor ever bestowed on a Korean golfer -- and as the world No. 1. What propelled the seemingly dispassionate “Silent Assassin” to heights she never imagined herself scaling were six wins, a trio of which came in the first three major championships of the year.

“Many people say I look effortless. They also say I’m emotionless. Some people started calling me the ‘Silent Assassin,’” Park said after accepting her PoY award last month, according to GolfChannel.com’s Randall Mell. “Just because I don’t show my emotions doesn’t mean I don’t feel anything. What I have gone through this year is more challenging than anything I’ve gone through in my life. The season seemed endless.”

This year was one of the wildest, most dramatic, and controversial years in golf. And if you’re looking for that one moment, the one shot and split second where we hit peak drama, it may have happened in Scottsdale back in the first month of the season.

Sure, the Waste Management Phoenix Open is not a major and there were more important and pressurized rounds, holes, and shots made over the past year. But Phil Mickelson’s flirtation with breaking 60 on a Thursday in January, a threat that seems to be more and more common each season, probably provided the certain moment where those watching jumped off their couch, or threw their hands up in the air, or screamed out at the TV.

It was a forgettable 2013 for Vijay Singh on the course, but he still garnered plenty of headlines off it with his ties to a previously banned substance and his subsequent lawsuit against the PGA Tour.

The situation began when Singh was tied to deer antler spray use provided by a company called Sports With Alternatives to Steroids (SWATS). Singh was one of several pro athletes listed in a Sports Illustrated article about the substance, which contains IGF-1. In the article, which was published in January (most notably for mentioning Ray Lewis just before the Super Bowl), Singh admitted to frequently using the deer antler spray.

Tiger Woods has accomplished nearly everything there is to accomplish on the PGA Tour ... except shoot a 59. He’s won and won and won some more. He’s set scoring records and won player of the year awards, but he’s never joined the 59 club. For a least a few hours last August, it appeared he might do just that.

It was the second round of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, played at Firestone Country Club. Firestone has been the site of some of Woods’ greatest moments -- including his famous shot in the dark -- and for 13 holes it looked like he would make more history on the Ohio track.

Tiger Woods won a PGA Tour-best five events during the 2013 season, accomplishments that helped the 79-time tour victor reclaim and cement his standing as the world’s No. 1 golfer and earn him his 11th player of the year award.

That’s all good. But Tiger’s campaign, a career year for any other player, was missing the one honor that has eluded him for the past five-plus years -- a 15th major championship. There were plenty of individual moments, both good and bad, which pepper our Top 25 countdown, but Tiger’s weekend struggles that resulted in another lost summer are No. 19 on our list.

Standing on the tee of his 72nd hole at the John Deere Classic, Jordan Spieth likely needed a birdie to even have a chance to make a playoff. He had surged up the leaderboard over the back nine, notching birdies on four of his last five holes heading into No. 18, but was still one stroke behind the leaders. When his approach shot landed in a green-side bunker, it appeared Spieth would instead have to settle for another top-10 finish.

Then, he caught a break. Spieth hit his bunker shot a little thin, but it was right on line. The ball took one hop, hit the pin and dropped into the cup for a miraculous birdie. After the tournament, Spieth called the birdie “extremely fortunate.” Sometimes in golf it’s better to be lucky than good.

The 2013 Masters was one of the best major tournaments in the history of golf, with multiple monumental storylines branching out in different directions. Before the tournament hit the weekend, perhaps no story was bigger than 14-year-old Chinese amateur Tianlang Guan, who became the youngest player ever to participate in and then make the cut at the Masters.

Guan was paired with old-timer Ben Crenshaw, a two-time Masters winner and considered one the game’s great mentors and historians, and former teenage amateur phenom, Italian star Matteo Manassero. Facing the world’s most famous course for the first time, and green speeds he’d probably never experienced, it was likely that Guan bow out early at Augusta, posting a couple rounds in the upper 70s or low 80s and then taking the weekend off. But it was pretty clear from the start that he would be fighting for those first 36 holes to make it through to the weekend.

Talking about the weather is rarely exciting and a sure and default sign that you’re searching for things to discuss in a conversation you probably don’t want to have. But the weather on the PGA Tour this year warranted real, legitimate and almost always interesting discussion. The near weekly weather events and delays were a constant topic, and the extreme conditions and frequency were enough to make it one of the top 25 stories from this season.

It started right out of the gate at the first tournament of the year, an enclave known for gray skies and stormy weather -- Maui? It wasn’t your average thunderstorms and rain that affected the start of the year in Hawaii.

Teen prodigies are all the rage these days on the professional golf circuits, what with Lexi Thompson, 18, winning her third LPGA Tour event this week, and 14-year-old Guan Tianlang’s star turn at the Masters.

Then there’s Lydia Ko, next up in our season-ending countdown of the most headline-worthy memories from the 2013 golf season...