Insider: Five players who could be the next Woodland
By Stan Awtrey, PGATOUR.COM Correspondent
The mold they use to create a PGA TOUR player has started to change again. Like most other professional sports, there's a move toward bigger and stronger players. And while little guys who stress course management will always have a role on the golf course, it's the big guys who are capable of busting the ball a mile who have shifted the game even further in favor of the power game.
Since the bomb-and-gouge strategy has become popular over the last decade, the players have gotten bigger and hit it even farther off the tee. The prototypes are Dustin Johnson (6-foot-4, 190 pounds), who may be the most athletic guy on TOUR, and Bubba Watson (6-3, 190). Now it looks like you can add Gary Woodland to that list.
Woodland is 6-foot-1 and weighs 200 pounds and was good enough to play shortstop on a traveling baseball team that won about 90 percent of the 100 games it played each season. Forced by his father to choose between the two sports, Woodland went with golf. He earned his 2011 PGA TOUR card by finishing 11th at q-school. And if the torn labrum in his left shoulder that required surgery in 2010 is still bothering him, you'd never be able to tell.
It is unfair to compare Woodland to the more-accomplished Johnson and Watson; they are both multiple winners on the TOUR and both members of the 2010 Ryder Cup team. But the gap was closed last week when Woodland won the Transitions Championship in Tampa on a long and difficult golf course. That victory wasn't Woodland's first big performance this year. It was the fourth time he's finished sixth or better in seven starts.
Woodland wants people to know he's more than just a bomber. He ranks No. 8 in driving distance at 299.5 yards per poke. (Watson leads at 313.5 and Johnson is second at 311.8).
"It was frustrating at times, because everybody loves it. They love how far you can hit it and they want to see it," Woodland said. "It's exciting and I don't blame anybody for that. But I wanted to prove that I had more than just hitting a golf ball a long way."
Woodland has now played his way into the Masters for the first time. He's vaulted all the way into third place in the FedExCup standings and is starting to eyeball a spot at East Lake for THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola.
He's played his way into the invitationals that dot the TOUR schedule. He has proven his point. He's more than just a guy swinging a driver as hard as he can. (Much like Bubba Watson has proven he's more than a guy with a pink-shafted driver who swings as hard as he can; he is No. 1 in greens in regulation.) Woodland ranks 15th in greens in regulation.
So now that Woodland has broken through, who's the next potential candidate to enjoy that breakthrough moment? Here are few of his big-hitting contemporaries who are waiting for their big moment.
Chris Baryla (6-0, 180): The Canadian (and another Sean Foley student) hits it a long way (ranks fourth in driving at 309 yards), but hasn't made a cut this season. Baryla the Gorilla is still showing the effects of torn hip labrum that limited him to seven events last season.
Steven Bowditch (6-0, 200): The Aussie ranks 13th in driving distance (297.7) and has made the cut in five of seven starts. His best finish was a tie for ninth at Pebble Beach, but his second full season on TOUR is already better than 2006, when he made only two cuts in 22 starts.
Jim Renner (6-1, 210): The only Johnson and Wales University graduate (OK, he started at Oklahoma with his buddy Anthony Kim before transferring) on the PGA TOUR, Renner ranks 15th in distance (296.5). He's made the cut in three of five starts, including the last two, but hasn't finished higher than 58th.
Bobby Gates (6-6, 230): Of the young, hard-hitting crew, Gates, 25, may be the closest to breaking through. He's learning to make the cut (three of his last four starts) and has a pair of top-10s at Mayakoba and Puerto Rico. Only a final-round 78 blew him out of the water at Tampa last week. He's currently tied for 19th in driving distance (285.6)
Scott Stallings (6-0, 195): The Tennessee resident may be getting ready, too. He ranks 18th in distance (295.9) and finished third at the Transitions Championship (after getting in the field on a sponsors exemption) with a solid all-around effort. It was the second straight event in which he's made the cut after failing to do so over the first five events. "Only confidence from here on out," Stallings said.
Sometimes confidence is all it takes. Make a few cuts, make a few putts and before you know it they're handing you a big hunk of crystal. It's a bomber's dream come true. Just as Gary Woodland.
Stan Awtrey is a freelance columnist for PGATOUR.COM. His views do not necessarily reflect the views of the PGA TOUR.
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