ESPN Golf

Well, it's that time of the year when I run out of ideas for a column and resort to the cheap trick of issuing the coveted Sirak Awards, although a thorough search still has yet to determine exactly who covets them.

What makes these awards special is that there are no categories. It's easy to come up with awards -- like Player of the Year -- and then find someone who deserves the honor. What I do is pick the winners and then figure out the categories. That way everyone who deserves to win something wins something. And that means I won't have to feel the way the BCS people will feel after Ohio State pummels Florida and Michigan destroys USC and everyone is left wondering what would have happened if the Buckeyes and the Wolverines had met on a neutral field.

Here's how my thinking works, though more than a few readers have questioned whether anything I write has any thinking involved. Camilo Villegas, for example, deserves to win an award for something, so I create a category that fits him. Like if this were a baseball column, I'd say Alex Rodriguez deserves an award and then I would honor him as The Overpaid Player Who Does the Best Job of Padding His Stats with Meaningless RBI. Get it? So here we go.

With all due respect to Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio, who created this franchise, I feel compelled to steal their idea and in doing so present the 2006 Just Shut Up Award to anyone who dares doubt Tiger Woods is the best golfer currently competing. Don't even consider questioning his supremacy for at least five years, not after what he did in 2006: eight PGA Tour victories, including the British Open and the PGA Championship; six wins in a row and counting. He won the British Open using only 13 clubs, for Hogan's sake, leaving the driver in the bag save once. Talk among yourselves if you will about who No. 2 is -- Jim Furyk, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, Brett Wetterich -- but even if Tiger misses every cut in 2007, he still should be considered No. 1. And consider this: If Tiger decided tomorrow to retire and start a chicken ranch in Arkansas and never played another round of competitive golf, he has already achieved enough to be considered the fourth in the succession of American golf greats, following Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus. So let me just be the first to say to those who throw around the word "slump" when Tiger goes three in a row without winning in 2007: Just shut up!

Against the women, Michelle Wie lowered her stroke average from 70.87 in 2005 to 70.77 in 2006, and her average place of finish in LPGA events improved from 8.8 to 8.0. Even more dramatic, in the first six of her eight LPGA tournaments in 2006, Wie had a stroke average of 69.68 and an average finishing position of 3.5. Not bad for someone who didn't turn 17 until October.

Against the men, Wie increased her stroke average from 73.0 in six rounds in 2005 to 75.20 in 15 rounds in 2006. Even more dramatic, in her final seven rounds of 2006 against the men, Wie had a stroke average of 79.0 and finished ahead of only one player -- a Japanese amateur. Isn't it time to table playing against the men for a few years?

Not only was Lorena Ochoa a hit on the golf course with six LPGA victories and a half dozen runner-up finishes, ending Annika Sorenstam's five-year run as Player of the Year, but she was a hit off the course as well. The Mexican, who didn't turn 25 until late in the year, displayed a wisdom and compassion beyond her years by visiting Spanish-speaking maintenance workers before tournaments and thanking them for their hard work keeping the golf course in shape. And she did it quietly with no fanfare for herself. This kid is the real deal in every way.

Only Phil Mickelson could go from being on the verge of surpassing Tiger Woods as the best player on the planet to an unraveled mess in one hole. If Lefty wins the U.S. Open at Winged Foot, it is his third consecutive major championship, and he heads to the British Open with a chance of matching Woods' feat of winning four consecutive majors. Instead, he makes double bogey, misses a playoff by one stroke, never contends in another tournament the rest of the year, has a dismal Ryder Cup and then takes the rest of the year off. What will Phil do next? Something highly entertaining, that's a lock.

It would have been easy to head into his retirement years by putting the PGA Tour on cruise control, but commissioner Tim Finchem instead made a series of bold moves that will either make or break his legacy. In 2007, the FedEx Cup ends the season in September, but will it capture the imagination of the fans? The 15-year cable-exclusive deal with the Golf Channel is visionary in anticipating what the all-golf network can become, but will it fulfill that promise? The answers will be known by the time Finchem's new six-year contract extension expires, at which point this award might be subject to further review.

The first female ever to serve as commissioner of the LPGA also chose to shake things up. In her first year on the job, Carolyn Bivens picked a fight with the media by attempting to gain ownership of photographs and stories produced at LPGA events, upset tournament owners by laying new costs on them and had three senior executives quit on the eve of the LPGA Championship. Still, she heads into 2007 with solid support on the Board of Directors and significant support among the players. Year Two will be a key year.

The passing of Earl Woods in May after a lengthy battle against prostate cancer was a loss not just for Tiger but for any parent looking for a role model on how to raise an extremely talented child. Get out the old magazines and look at the hugs and the tears Tiger and Earl shared. They were genuine. Earl never lost sight of the fact that Tiger was his son first and a golfer a distant second.

When Hootie Johnson retired as chairman of Augusta National Golf Club in May, there were still no female members at the home of the Masters. In the end, Hootie will likely be remembered more for the changes he made on the course -- more yardage, more trees and rough -- than the change he refused to make in the membership.

The U.S. Open at Winged Foot was exactly the way the national championship should be played -- it was difficult and it was fair. The Foot proved once again to be one of the best layouts anywhere, and Mike Davis of the USGA set it up perfectly. The stepped rough was a stroke of genius, and the fact the tournament was decided by bogeys and double bogeys on the final hole rather than birdies did nothing but enhance the entertainment value of the event.

After all the talk early in the year about the young studs on tour -- J.B. Holmes, Bubba Watson and Camilo Villegas -- they all sort of faded in the second half. Of them, Villegas seems the best candidate to be the real deal. Muscular, talented, articulate, good-looking -- it's sort of like when Arnold Palmer came along 50 years ago. Let's hope there is follow-through on the promise. Tiger can't carry the game by himself forever.

Hope you enjoyed the 2006 season as much as I did, and I hope you look forward to 2007 with the same enthusiasm I have. I'll leave you with one more award, actually more of a prediction.

The Pittsburgh Pirates. You read it here first. Good night, and good luck.

Ron Sirak is the executive editor of Golf World magazine.