Players Select Jim Furyk as 2010 POY

IN A VOTE BY PGA Tour players, Jim Furyk was awarded the 2010 PGA Tour Player of the Year. Others on the ballot included Matt Kuchar, Dustin Johnson, Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson, but Furyk was the clear choice in my mind. Jim’s victory at the Tour Championship sealed the deal. He also walked off with the FedEx Cup and its $10 million bonus. His two other wins came at the Transitions Championship and Verizon Heritage.

“The year just keeps getting better is all I can say,” Furyk told reporters at the Chevron World Challenge in Thousand Oaks, California. “I’m not sure I want 2010 to end at this point.”

In a year defined by Tiger Woods’s free-fall off and on the golf course, the 40-year-old Furyk had the best season of his 18-year career to rise above other contenders for the tour’s largest pot of gold (FedEx Cup) and top award. No one—not even Furyk himself, I expect—could have seen it coming. No knock on Jim, but I wouldn’t expect him to win POY again. The Tiger vacuum created unexpected opportunities this season for Furyk and other veteran players and rising stars. What happens in 2011 is anyone’s guess.

Rickie Fowler won PGA Tour Rookie of the Year.

−The Armchair Golfer