The Odd Stat of the Week

Issue: In honor of the PGA Tour's official start tomorrow, could you do the "Odd Stat of the Week" a bit early this week, and make it golf related?

Short Answer: Ask and you shall receive...

Reasoning: The golf season basically has no offseason, as it is warm enough somewhere in the world, at all times, to play golf.  However, the PGA Tour officially kicks off its season this week with the Hyundai Tournament of Champions at Kapalua (Hawaii).  In order to play in this tournament, one must have actually won a PGA Tour event last year, so, there will be no Tiger Woods.  Also, there are a host of those who did win, who have chosen not to play (yeah, I don't get it either, but maybe Hawaii gets old after you have been there a few times?  Really?  What better does a professional golfer have to do than go to Hawaii and play for a million or so dollars?  REALLY?).  Anyway, the list of those not coming to Kapalua include Phil Mickelson, Louis Oosthuizen, Martin Kaymer, Lee Westwood, and Rory McIlroy.  For those of you that only recognize Phil - Oosthuizen won the British Open in 2010 and Kaymer the PGA Championship; Westwood is the #1 player in the world and McIlroy is the brightest young star out there.  But, the tournament is in Hawaii, and when one (me, in particular) lives in a cold weather climate, tuning in to watch golf in Hawaii, golf stars or not, sounds pretty good.

With that said comes the odd stat of the week, which deals directly with the Tournament of Champions.  Here is a list of the last 10 champions of the event, and the number of Tour wins they had THE REST OF THE YEAR*:

• 2010 - Geoff Ogilvy - 0
• 2009 - Geoff Ogilvy - 1
• 2008 - Daniel Chopra - 0
• 2007 - Vijay Singh - 1
• 2006 - Stuart Appleby - 1
• 2005 - Stuart Appleby - 0
• 2004 - Stuart Appleby - 0
• 2003 - Ernie Els - 1
• 2002 - Sergio Garcia - 0
• 2001 - Jim Furyk - 0

The lesson to be learned here is that maybe some of these golfers should think about dropping a few strokes around the course on Sunday, as winning this tournament seems to be a curse.  Unless, of course, your name is Tiger Woods, who won this tournament in 2000 (which is now 11 years ago!) and then won 8, yes 8, more times that year.  Since he won't be there this year, someone else is about to curse their season.  If, you know, winning $1,120,000 for four days of work can be considered a curse.

*Thanks to Jason Sobel at espn.com.