Maginnes: Handing out the 2008 Ginny Awards

text size

Pensinger/Getty Images

As usual, Tiger Woods always grabs the first award in John Maginnes' list.

Welcome to the second annual Ginny Awards, the only sporting awards known to man that are more fun to give than to get.

More

• John Maginnes column archive • Give us your take on Facebook

The Ginny Committee held an abbreviated and impromptu meeting on Sunday night at the Tap Room in Greensboro, N.C. The emergency meeting was called into session after the line on the evening football game had been established and negotiated.

We have stepped up in the world this year -- we even have a local sponsor, Stewart Black of Bill Black Cadillac, who bought a round of shots for the regular suspects in exchange for a mention.

OK, I admit it, I'm cheap.

The Ginny Awards are decided upon by a committee led by A.A., the proprietor of the Tap Room, as well as Stewart, Amber, Dave and yours truly. In our rag-tag group there are two common threads, a sense of humor and an affinity for certain types of evening entertainment.

The first award once again must go to Tiger Woods, because A.A. insisted. So he gets the Lance Armstrong Award. Did you ever watch the Tour de France without Lance? Fifty bucks says you can't name who won the darn thing this year. When Lance was dominating, though, we cared about the Tour because we had a hero. And whether he's playing or not, Tiger is golf's current hero.

In case you missed it, Tiger still finished second on the money list with only six starts before he had reconstructive surgery. Of course, he won four of those. But in Tiger's wake there were lots of guys with big game who stepped up.

So the Who the Heck Are These Guys Award goes to 12 players we had barely heard of a year ago. The season started with a bunch of veterans winning before Andres Romero triumphed in New Orleans and the rest of the young guys woke up.

Condon/Getty Images

Anthony Kim walks away after signing an autograph for David Whitfield, who he accidentally struck with a drive at East Lake in September.

Three other rookies - Dustin Johnson, Marc Turnesa and Chez Reavie -- won on TOUR this year, and there were eight more first-time champs. Anthony Kim was in consideration for this award a year ago, but now he is so famous that he is associated with several other awards -- including the next one.

The Hard Hat Award goes to former UNC golfer David Whitfield. There was a time when he would have liked to have been vying for the previous award but that was quite a while ago. This year all he did was attend THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola and be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Anthony Kim's drive on the ninth tee plucked David right above the right eye and he went down like a sack of potatoes. David is fine now and has quite the story to tell at cocktail parties. Maybe we should put him on the Ginny Committee.

The ABJ Award actually goes to Anthony. Those are the initials of Amber, a committee member whom Anthony has never met. However, what he doesn't realize is that Amber attended both the Wachovia Championship and the AT&T National. There must be something to that -- at least there was last night when the committee reviewed the list of possible awards. In the light of day it may not be our best effort so hopefully, we can redeem ourselves. Here goes:

The Barack Obama Award goes to the U.S. Ryder Cup rookies. (The fact that my computer doesn't recognize the word Obama is proof that this award is aptly named.) This award is given to the group of people who couldn't possibly win and pulled it off. Even though the average PGA TOUR driving range has fewer Democrats than vegetarians they would have to be proud of this award.

The Hillary Clinton Award goes to the European Ryder Cup Team because they couldn't lose but they did. The Europeans had kicked our butts so badly in the previous three meetings that the Americans didn't have a chance. But U.S. Captain Paul Azinger simply ran a better campaign than his European counterpart, Nick Faldo, and the rest is history.

The Sarah Palin Award goes to Faldo for the effort, though. I am sure this is first time that he has ever been compared to a lipstick-wearing hockey mom, although he has been called far worse by the European press. But enough about politics.

The Richard Simmons Award goes to Phil Mickelson. Every year Phil shows up skinny and then gradually seems to swell with the passing months. But this year, although he didn't win after May despite two top-10s in the majors, he kept his weight down.

The Usain Bolt Award goes to Vijay Singh. Bolt is the Jamaican sprinter who broke all the records in the Olympics. Singh won the FedExCup by such a margin that he didn't even need to look over his shoulder going to the finish line. As a matter of fact, all he had to do was finish 72 holes in Atlanta and he was a lock for that hefty $10 million bonus.

Finally, the Firefly Award goes to Ian Poulter. Firefly is a new type of vodka that actually tastes like sweet tea. I am not kidding. If you put it in a KFC cup you wouldn't know the difference -- at least for a while. It appears completely innocuous but it comes with one heck of a kick. That is what Poulter did at the Ryder Cup. Everyone thought that he was a poor selection but he turned out to be the best player on a losing team. Drink enough Firefly and you will think that you are the best player on a losing team as well.

There were lots of other awards considered that didn't make the grade for a variety of reasons - good taste being the primary one. I would print the unedited version but then I would get fired so hopefully this entertains you anyway.

John Maginnes is a columnist for PGATOUR.COM. His opinion does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the PGA TOUR.