2014 – A Year in Review

It was an exciting year for golf fans in 2014!!  I’ve pulled together a couple of interesting facts from UPI.com and Golfchannel.com.

Look out for Lydia Ko in 2015 in the LPGA Tour!!  Rory should also continue his dominate play!!
PGA Tour – PLAYER OF THE YEAR — RORY MCILROYWith two major championship titles and a World Golf Championship victory, it was easy to pick Rory McIlroy as the Player of the Year, earning $8,280,096.
McIlroy picked up three straight wins at the Open Championship, WGC- Bridgestone Invitational and PGA Championship. Prior to that run, he had six top-10 finishes.
After a missed cut at the European Tour’s Irish Open, McIlroy shot par or better in 28 of his next 32 rounds. In his three straight victories, he broke par in all 12 rounds and shot in the 60s in 11 of those 12.He led the PGA Tour with 12 top-10 finishes (in 17 starts) and tied for third- most top-5 finishes with six. While Jimmy Walker also had three wins in the 2013-14 season, Walker didn’t have another top-5 finish.
McIlroy put together a strong statistical year too. He led the PGA Tour in par breakers, scoring average and money earned to name a few categories. He also finished third in driving distance and sixth in greens in regulation percentage.

A Year to Learn – Tiger Woods made just eight starts as he missed significant time after back surgery. His best finish was a tie for 25th at the WGC-Cadillac Championship. Woods played in the final two majors after missing the first two and he was over par in four of his five rounds in those two events.- Phil Mickelson finished second at the PGA Championship, but that was his lone top-10 on the PGA Tour in 2014. Mickelson was not a factor in the other three majors.- Mike Weir‘s struggles continued as he made just nine cuts in 25 starts. The former Masters champion did card four rounds in the 60s en route to a second- place finish at the Byron Nelson Championship, but his next-best finish was a tie for 44th at the Masters.- Padraig Harrington made seven cuts in 16 PGA Tour starts. The three-time majors champion’s best finish was a share of 22nd at the Byron Nelson. He finished 192nd on the money list.

LPGA Tour – Stacy Lewis was the LPGA’s triple-crown winner in 2014, having won the Tour’s Player of the Year race, money title and the Vare Trophy for lowest scoring average. That Lewis was able to eke past Inbee Park and Lydia Ko in all three categories is telling, for Lewis’s season was one of the best ever for an American player since International stars came to dominate the Tour in the last 15 or so years. But Park and Ko had monster years themselves.All three golfers earned more than $2 million in 2014, the first time three players reached that milestone in the same year. Each player won three tournaments. Lewis was second six times, no doubt the edge she needed in the POY race. With 10 top-3 finishes, she slid past Park and Ko by a 10 to 9 to 8 margin. Of the trio, only Park missed a cut this year (Airbus LPGA). With 77 starts between them, the trio combined for 50 top-10 finishes. Lewis might have won the three awards, but Ko and Park don’t head into the holiday season empty handed. Ko won the CME Globe season-long points championship (and the $1 million bonus, which doesn’t count toward her season earnings). Park is the current No. 1 in the Rolex Rankings.How the LPGA’s top three players compare: Tournament finishes

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