Rick Reilly, ESPN: It’s not often women win the Masters, but they did Sunday. Actually, Phil Mickelson won, but for millions of women around the country, it must feel like a lipstick-sized victory. Mickelson, in case you forgot, is the guy who stayed true to his wife. He’s the guy who’s been missing tournaments the last 11 months while he flies her back and forth to a breast cancer specialist in Houston. He’s the guy who didn’t need reminding that women are not disposable. Mani-pedis for everybody! Also winning Sunday: karma, which proved to be alive and well. And guys who never had a temper in the first place. And endings that make you wipe your tears on the couch pillows. Mickelson is the guy whose heavy head on the bed pillow lately wasn’t self-inflicted. Both his wife, Amy, and his mother, Mary, have breast cancer. Usually, those two are at every tournament he’s in, but for the last year they’ve been fighting, resting, and fighting again at home. And Mickelson has gone back to his rented homes alone. So when Amy turned up on the 18th green Sunday at Augusta National for the first time in 11 months and Mickelson practically fell into her outstretched arms, you wanted to hug somebody yourself. Mickelson hugged and cried. And his wife hugged and cried.
Mike Freeman, CBSSports.com: Woods approached and decided not to take a drop. Woods’ caddy, Steve Williams, told fans to “watch the shadows on his ball” and then rolled his eyes when several people didn’t move quickly enough for his liking. After talking to himself for about 15 seconds, Woods took his shot, and a second after the swing there was a strong thud. The ball hit a tree and rolled out onto the fairway. Woods never said a word to Sullivan before or after ball met biceps. Interestingly, in the very next group, again on 11, Phil Mickelson’s shot hit a different fan, also in the arm, right near Sullivan. Mickelson approached the fan, asked if he was OK and handed him a glove. Besides illustrating the differences between how Woods and Mickelson treat people, the 11th basically ended any chance of Woods making his Masters return even more fascinating than it was. Woods bogeyed 11 just as Mickelson was starting to surge. And it was fascinating, curse-filled theatre watching Woods, to be sure. Woods shot 69 to finish 11 under and tied for fourth. His day typified what has been one of the more circus-like but brilliant returns to a sport after a layoff any great athlete has ever accomplished. It doesn’t quite rival Ali’s return to boxing, but it was on the same level as Michael Jordan’s return to basketball.
The word rivalry is defined as “competition for the same objective or superiority in the same field.” Rivalries exist in all facets of life, but they are no more apparent than in the world of sport. With the end of the decade looming, here are the six most intense rivalries of the last ten years.
6. Tiger Woods vs. Phil Mickelson
Competition between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson may not produce the mystique that Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus once did, but their rivalry has been exciting nonetheless. Without Tiger Woods, professional golf’s popularity would be a mere morsel of what it is today. The man has won 14 majors, holds his own tournament (the AT&T National), designed two beautiful courses, is the only golfer with his own video game, and garners public intrigue on the same level as world leaders. Still, his status as figurehead of professional golf wouldn’t have any merit without some stiff competition. Enter Phil Mickelson, Tiger’s only adversary with any staying power. When Mickelson won the 2000 Buick Invitational, he also officially ended Tiger’s streak of consecutive tournament wins at six. Over the years, Mickelson would hire Butch Harmon, Tiger’s former coach, and joke about Tiger’s use of “inferior equipment.” Still, their rivalry always remained amicable, even as Phil won his first major in ’04 (The Masters), the PGA Championship in ’05 another Green Jacket in ’06. During this year’s Masters, Tiger and Mickelson were finally paired together in a major event. Trudging down the final back nine at Augusta, the two golfers put on a show that thankfully lived up to the hype. –- Christopher Glotfelty
To the surprise of very few, Tiger Woods is favored to win this year’s PGA Championship, which starts today and runs through the weekend. The PGA Championship is the fourth and final major of the year.
Woods is currently a 3/2 favorite to win and although he’s coming off a victory at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, Tiger has yet to win a major in 2009. In fact, the best he’s done so far was a sixth place finish at the Masters and a sixth place finish at the U.S. Open. (He missed the cut entirely at the British Open.)
Tiger missed last year’s PGA Championship, but did win the event in 2006 and 2007. He also has some momentum heading into Hazeltine National, winning the two last consecutive tournaments (Bridgestone and the Buick Open) that he has played in, which give him a total of five wins on the year.
Tiger’s main competition this weekend, at least based on the odds, appears to be Padraig Harrington (20/1), Phil Mickelson (22/1), Lee Westwood (28/1) and Hunter Mahan (30/1).
Here’s a TV schedule for this year’s PGA Championship:
Thursday, August 13: 2PM – 8PM on TNT Friday, August 14: 2PM – 8PM on TNT Saturday, August 15: 11AM – 2PM on TNT Sunday, August 16: 11AM – 2PM ET on TNT Sunday, August 16: 2PM – 7PM on CBS
To check the 2009 PGA Championship leaderboard, click here.
SI.com compiled a ranking of the 50 highest-earning American athletes and discovered that Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are at the top of the list.
1. Tiger Woods Pro Golf Last Year’s Rank: 1 Salary/Winnings: $7,737,626 Endorsements: $92,000,000 Total: $99,737,626
Tiger sacrificed millions in appearance fees during his year off to recover from knee surgery, but replaced his lucrative Buick deal — voided by mutual consent — with a new one from AT&T.
2. Phil Mickelson Pro Golf Last Year’s Rank: 2 Salary/Winnings: $6,350,356 Endorsements: $46,600,000 Total: $52,950,356
Like Tiger, Phil no longer counts on a car-maker in his endorsement portfolio. (Ford chose not to re-sign him.) He still has lucrative deals with Rolex, Callaway, Exxon, Barclay’s and KPMG.
3. LeBron James Cleveland Cavaliers (NBA) Last Year’s Rank: 3 Salary/Winnings: $14,410,581 Endorsements: $28,000,000 Total: $42,410,581
LeBron has one more season left under his deal before he can opt out. If Cleveland doesn’t show it’s Finals-worthy by next spring, expect the Knicks to come in with a huge offer.
4. Alex Rodriguez New York Yankees (MLB) Last Year’s Rank: 6 (tie) Salary/Winnings: $33,000,000 Endorsements: $6,000,000 Total: $39,000,000
We’re in the middle of A-Rod’s peak earning power in his middle-loaded, 10-year megadeal: He’ll make another $33 million in 2010 and then gradually decrease to a “normal” $20 million by ’17.
The Big Bargaining Chip? Regardless of his trade to Cleveland, Shaq is in the final year of the five-year, $100 million deal he signed while with Miami. It’s the largest expiring deal in the NBA.
No. 10 Peyton Manning Indianapolis Colts (NFL) Last Year’s Rank: 9 Salary/Winnings: $14,500,000 Endorsements: $13,000,000 Total: $27,000,000
NFL’s top endorser has distributed $500,000 in grants in ’09 through his PayBack Foundation to charities in Indianapolis, near his alma mater (Tennessee) and his hometown, New Orleans.
It’s amazing that the highest paid NFL player (Peyton Manning) barely cracked the top 10. Granted, the NFL only has a 17-game regular season, but you’d think that for what football players put their bodies through every season that they would make more than baseball players, golfers and basketball players.
Although he is pitching well this season despite his overall numbers, seeing Zito’s name on this list at No. 26 makes me shudder. He’s the third best pitcher (maybe fourth depending on how high you value Randy Johnson) on his own club, yet he’s the 26th highest-earning American athlete. Still, it should be noted that Zito donates $400 for every strikeout that he throws to the Strikeouts for Troops charity that he created to help hospitals treat soldiers that are wounded in military operations. In fact, as the article notes, a lot of the guys on this list give thousands of dollars to charities every year and that shouldn’t be overlooked.
