Mickelson, Kim, Garcia battle for award as well as trophy

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Sep. 27, 2008
By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents

ATLANTA -- An interesting subplot at THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola this week is the race for the Vardon Trophy and the Byron Nelson Award. Those two honors go to the player with the lowest adjusted scoring average.

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Anthony Kim and Phil Mickelson played well together in the Ryder Cup and now are both in the running, along with Sergio Garcia, for the Vardon Trophy and Byron Nelson Award.

The top four players in the standings are in the 30-man field at East Lake, with three of the four in contention. The fourth, Vijay Singh, will win the FedExCup and its $10 million bonus when he signs his scorecard on Sunday but has taken himself out of the running for scoring honors when he opened with rounds of 73 and 74.

The current Vardon Trophy and Byron Nelson Award leader is Phil Mickelson, who came into THE TOUR Championship with an adjusted scoring average of 69.52, ahead of Sergio Garcia by .01 of a stroke. The Spaniard is .11 ahead Anthony Kim and Singh.

All four players say THE TOUR Championship will be their last PGA TOUR event of the season, so the Vardon Trophy and Byron Nelson Award hang in the balance.

"It would be very cool to win that," Mickelson said. "It shows that you've played consistently well throughout the year, and it would be a great honor. We still have a lot of golf left this weekend that will probably decide it."

Kim currently holds a two-stroke advantage over Garcia and Mickelson at East Lake in the race for THE TOUR Championship's $1.26 million first prize. The other awards are icing on the cake.

"The only thing I can do is keep playing well," Garcia said. "If I manage to win that, that's a bonus. It would be great. But that's not my goal at the moment. ...

"I just want to ... make sure I have a good, solid weekend, give myself a chance at winning THE TOUR Championship, which is a great event, and finish a good year in a very good manner."

The 23-year-old Kim doesn't know much about Harry Vardon, the award's namesake who won six Open Championships and pioneered the overlapping grip. Kim found out Friday that he had a shot at winning his trophy, though.

"It's an honor to win any award out here," he said. "It's tough. You've got great players everywhere and great golf tournaments to win, and I feel like I've had a pretty good year. Hopefully I can just keep plodding along the way I've been."

Someone asked Kim if he understood the mathematics used to come up with the adjustment, which is computed by determining the stroke average of the field for each round player. The average is then subtracted from par to create an adjustment for each round which the player accumulates.

"Listen, I have a hard enough time figuring out my score when I'm out there," Kim said with a smile. "I don't think about like all those other numbers. I'm looking forward to the challenge, and it should be fun."