Tiger Slam tops among storylines of last decade

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Tiger Woods, David Duval, the creation of the FedExCup and Phil Mickelson were all major stories of the last decade.

Remember 1999? Tiger Woods was dominating golf and a new rival, we thought, was emerging in a young Sergio Garcia. Fast forward 10 years and as we get ready to enter a new decade and look back on the past one, Woods is still dominating golf and it's Phil Mickelson, we think, who will be the one to challenge Woods for the foreseeable future.

Much has changed, though, so as we head toward 2010, let's take a look back at the biggest storylines of the aughts.

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1. The Tiger Slam. It started in June at the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, where Tiger Woods tied or set nine U.S. Open records on his way to a 15-stroke victory. It ended the following April with Woods winning the Masters to become the first player in the modern era to hold all four major championship trophies at once. In between, Woods set a record for the lowest score in relation to par at a major with a 19-under total at the Open Championship at St. Andrews before a dramatic playoff victory over Bob May at the PGA Championship at Valhalla. And that was just at the majors. In all, Woods set or tied 27 TOUR records and won nine times on TOUR in 2000, including at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, where he rallied from seven strokes back in the final round.

2. Tiger's 2008 U.S. Open win. It was arguably the greatest victory in the history of golf, Woods winning at Torrey Pines on practically one leg. What no one outside of the Woods camp knew was that he was playing with a completely torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. What also made Woods' 14th career major championship memorable, of course, was the mano-a-mano tone it took down the stretch and into an 18-hole Monday playoff and then sudden death against Rocco Mediate. It was a classic David vs. Goliath match-up with Goliath winning thanks to Woods making every shot he had to make when he had to make it. That would be the last time we would see Woods in 2008 before he underwent season-ending surgery. How he would recover from that was answered rather resoundingly in the form of six victories and another FedExCup title in 2009 to close out the decade.

3. David Duval's decline. One of only two players to be ranked No. 1 in the world in the Tiger era (See No. 4 for the other), Duval's decline was almost as precipitous as his rise. Five years after reaching the top spot in the Official World Golf Ranking and three years after winning the 2001 British Open, Duval dropped to 520th -- from 15th just two years earlier. As the missed cuts continued to pile up, Duval fell all the way to 882nd before coming out of nowhere to finish second at the 2009 U.S. Open, where he was a sectional qualifier and subsequently climbed more than 700 spots in the OWGR to 142nd. As we turn to a new decade, however, Duval is without a TOUR card after finishing outside the top 125 on the 2009 money list.

4. Vijay Singh shows there is life after 40. So often it's been wondered how many major championships others would have if not for Tiger Woods. Ernie Els immediately comes to mind, in part, because of his three runners-up in 2000, but it's Vijay Singh who ranks second on TOUR in victories and top-10s over the last decade with 26 and 118, respectively. Singh is also the other player to be ranked No. 1 during the Woods era. Els? He had nearly one-third fewer wins with nine during that same period. What makes Singh's run in the aughts so amazing is that 22 of those victories came on the other side of the age of 40, which Singh turned in 2003. That's five more than legend Sam Snead, who ranks second on that list. Singh's work ethic is beyond legendary and the fruits of his labor paid off better than nearly anyone's over the last decade.

5. Annika Sorenstam, Michelle Wie and Suzy Whaley. Only a few years earlier, in 1999, Brandi Chastain, Mia Hamm and the rest of the U.S. women's soccer team provided one of the stories of that decade by winning the World Cup. That propelled women's sports to a level of attention never previously achieved. In 2003, Sorenstam took the proverbial torch and crashed the gender barrier, becoming the first woman to play in a TOUR event in 54 years when she got a sponsor's exemption into the Bank of America Colonial, where she opened with a 1-over 71 while leading the field in fairways hit and ranking in the top 20 in greens in regulation before eventually missing the cut. Later that summer club pro Suzy Whaley took it a step further by qualifying for the Greater Hartford Open by winning the Connecticut Section PGA Championship. By the time a then 14-year-old Michelle Wie was given a sponsor's exemption into the 2004 Sony Open in Hawaii, a woman playing in a TOUR event wasn't exactly news, but that didn't stop her from making headlines, too -- Wie's second-round 68 was the lowest ever score by a woman in a TOUR event. Wie would go on to play in seven more TOUR events, missing the cut or withdrawing in all of them.

6. Equipment revolutions. There were four major developments in the equipment world over the last decade -- almost all in a restrictive sense. Two of the larger ones were the advent of the multi-layer golf ball -- spearheaded by Titleist's Pro V1 -- and the steroid-like growth of clubhead size on drivers and the thinness, or moment of inertia, of their faces -- something that would come under serious scrutiny and ultimately be limited by the USGA. The other two involve hybrids and wedges. Long gone are the days of 1- and 2-irons, even for the likes of Tiger Woods. All you have to do is look at the major championship successes of Todd Hamilton and Y.E. Yang, among others, to see why. As for the recent rollback on grooves for wedges, something that will go into effect at the beginning of 2010, we won't really know the impact until next decade.

7. Phil Mickelson breaks through for first major victory. You could have barely slid a piece of paper under Phil Mickelson's feet when he jumped in celebration following his 2004 Masters victory. That's neither here nor there, though, for arguably the second-best player of the last decade -- or most entertaining, anyway. Once that first major was out of the way, it didn't take too long for Mickelson to get a second (or third), which came at the 2005 PGA Championship and the 2006 Masters. In all, Mickelson won 24 times between 2000 and 2009. He's proved to be a modern-day Arnold Palmer, adored by the fans, with Tiger Woods playing the role of Jack Nicklaus.

8. The creation of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup. In the past, golf collided with football and guess who won? That all changed with the announcement of the Playoffs in November 2006. Tiger Woods won the inaugural title a year later with two wins a tie for second in three Playoffs starts. Vijay Singh was next to capture the FedExCup before Woods won again in 2009. Changes were made to the points system each of the first two years, but the system itself was a major step forward in drawing attention to golf after the PGA Championship, something that wasn't always easy in the past.

9. Arnie, Jack and Annika say goodbye. Though at different stages of their lives and careers, these three shared one thing in common -- other than first-name recognition -- over the last decade. They all officially hung up their competitive spikes; Palmer as more of a ceremonial figure and Nicklaus approaching that status with Sorenstam, meanwhile, nearing the downward peak of her career. Palmer and Nicklaus will, of course, be forever linked. Though their careers didn't entirely rival one another's -- at one point, it was more of Arnie passing the torch to Jack -- few will forget their waves to the adoring masses at places like Augusta National and St. Andrews. Though there was no rival to Sorenstam, her accomplishments deserve more than mere mention with 72 LPGA victories -- an amazing 43 of which came in 114 starts between 2001 and 2005 -- that includes 10 major championships.

10. Golf in the Olympics. We don't yet know the impact of golf truly going global with the decision to include it in the 2016 and 2020 Olympics, but it certainly can't be a bad thing, no matter the format. Exposing the game to golf-starved nations of the world is ultimately only going to make the sport better. And if all goes well, that impact could be exponential.

Others receiving votes: Sergio Garcia's failure to win a major championship; the tie at the 2003 Presidents Cup; the passing away of legends including Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Bob Hope, Bruce Edwards, Mark McCormack and Earl Woods; Major championships others would have won if not for Tiger Woods; the lack of a consistent rival to Woods.