Can We Please Wait to Crown Rory McIlroy the Next Golf King?

First off, congrats to Rory McIlroy for lapping the field at Congressional last week to win this year’s U.S. Open.  He played remarkable golf for four days to win by eight shots on a course that played a little easier than expected.  The USGA aims to have the winning score for the four rounds at even par, but this year on a wet course, 22 golfers finished at even par or better.  All that said, McIlroy decimated that course, finishing every round in the 60s.

Congrats to Rory on winning a major, it really is a great accomplishment, something that only a small fraction of professional golfers ever do, but let’s not anoint him as the Next Best Thing quite yet.  Is his future bright?  Absolutely, but let’s not lose site of the fact that this was only the third victory of his career.  Someone on ESPN’s PTI or Around the Horn (I apologize for not remembering who) said that until Rory wins another major he’s merely Todd Hamilton (little known/remembered 2004 British Open Champion).  It’s a great point.  Rory has all the potential in the world, but he’s got a lot of ground to make up if he wants to catch the career win totals of Jack Nicholas or Tiger Woods.  To catch Tiger, Rory needs to win 68 more titles, including 13 more majors, and to catch Jack he needs to win 71 more titles, including 17 more majors.  Daunting?  Yes.  Impossible?  Can’t say impossible, but improbable?  Absolutely.  Nicholas holds the distinction as owning the most major titles, but it’s the legendary Sam Snead with 82 total PGA Tour wins that everybody’s chasing.

We live in an instantaneous society, where everybody wants immediately to crown the Next Best Thing, but Rory’s one major win isn’t causing Jack, Tiger, Phil or any of the two plus time major winners to lose any sleep.  Let’s see how Rory does at the majors over the next two years.  I say two years because it took Tiger from the Masters in 1997 until the PGA in 1999 to win his second, but after that, Tiger put on an absolute clinic, winning four of the next five to complete the Tiger Slam (held all four major titles at the same time, but not won in a single calendar year).

Will the success of winning one major cause Rory to settle or will it stoke the fires inside like it did for Tiger?  It’s going to take a bonfire inside Rory for The Sports’ Question Mark to crown him the Next Golf King.  I promise, when he wins his 19^th major, I’ll be the 355^th to crown him once he’s completed all of his mandatory post round interviews.

What is the Greatest Trophy in Sports?

The doldrums of summer have now officially hit in the worlds of professional and collegiate sports.  Now that the NBA Finals and NHL Stanley Cup Finals have wrapped up, we only have Major League Baseball and a week of the College World Series from Omaha (somewhere in middle America) to entertain us until preseason football games in Aug...well maybe.  Yes, there's also MLS and auto racing...which will both be ignored.

So let's talk championships and more specifically championship trophies.  Now, I'm not going to be limited here by a "trophy" being defined as a two to four foot tall metal object, I'm talking about a prize given to an individual or team for winning a tournament, race, event, etc.  Yes, the monetary prizes for winning these events can be massive, but inquiring minds want to know what the best hardware is.

I'll build from the bottom to the top of the trophy pantheon.

MLS - Who knew that U.S.'s soccer championship trophy was simply called the MLS Cup? The trophy looks pretty cool, but the name of it and stature of the league make it fall way down the ranks.

NCAA Football - Cool crystal football, but you can't do anything with it except put it in a display case.  Look at the photos/video of all the coaches raising the thing after they've won the BCS title game.  They hold that thing more delicately than they hold babies.  Also, based on recent events, there's a greater than 10% chance that a championship team is going to give their title back due to improper benefits.  (USC confirmed and Auburn speculated.)

NASCAR - There are 37 trophies to choose from here (including the overall championship trophy), but I think only four are memorable.  The Daytona 500's Harley J. Earl Trophy is pretty special because of the history of the race, and sometimes it's awkward for the small drivers to lift the thing over their heads after they've won it.  After winning at Texas, drivers are given two six shooters to fire off from Victory Lane...pretty cool.  Winning at the Brickyard earns drivers a trophy with a brick...no joke.  http://www.life.com/image/82081261  One of the best trophies has to be for Dover's Monster Mile race http://www.doverspeedway.com/track/news/article.php?dir=200409&id=2 .  The only thing that tops this is that outside the stadium is a full sized monster http://www.aolnews.com/2008/01/29/bristol-goes-non-smoking-dover-gets-miles/ .  While all of these are nice to put on the mantel, there are too many to choose from.  Also, a winner of the Brickyard 400 isn't going to take his silver brick out and hope to pick up women with it.

MLB - It's sad to say that as lame as MLS's trophy's name is, MLB's Commissioner's Trophy is even worse.  Come on, couldn't you name it after the original Hall of Fame class?  The Cobb-Johnson-Mathewson-Ruth-Wagner trophy (although a mouthful) is infinitely better than the Commissioner's Trophy.  This trophy looks interesting with all of the pennants on it, but I'd be afraid to parade it around because those posts look like they could snap.

NBA - As you've learned, I'm not a big fan of the NBA, but congratulations to the Dallas Mavericks for winning this year's Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy.  This trophy is indeed iconic, but others are more so.

Wimbledon - Sorry guys, you get a trophy that looks like too many other trophies, it's the ladies that earn the best hardware...or in this case tableware.  The humongous plate...maybe it's so big it's a platter...is great.  It would be higher on the list, but in all the years of playing and following tennis I've never seen anyone eat off the thing.  You've just won the most prestigious tennis tournament ever ladies, enjoy the biggest serving of strawberries and cream on that trophy!

NFL - Everybody knows this polished silver trophy with the football on the top.  Almost everyone even knows the name of it, the Lombardi Trophy.  It is very iconic...it's named after one of the most famous coaches of all time...but the one thing I find wrong with it is it lacks a certain mystic or reverence...more on this with #1.

World Cup - It's a little gold trophy lacking an original name (FIFA World Cup Trophy), but every soccer playing nation hopes to have their team claim this, and the title of World's Best.  The trophy is small and isn't a polished work of art, but can billions of soccer fans be wrong?

Augusta - The coveted Green Jacket.  While Europeans may claim that the Claret Jug of The Open Championship (what we call the British Open) is the greatest prize in golf, no golf award is more iconic than the prize given to the Masters' Champion.  While it's not very stylish, who would ever tell a golfer wearing it to remove it?  That's why it's this highly ranked.

Olympic Gold Medal - (Thanks to my son for adding this to the list when I was thinking of trophies.)  Years of sacrifice and sometimes even the pressure of a nation make this the second greatest trophy of all time.  It's an award that you can take with you forever, but here's an interesting thought...someone once wrote that earning the Gold medal is sometimes a relief after all the hard work and earning the Silver can sometimes leave a somewhat bitter taste because that individual was so close to earning Gold.  The Bronze medal may be the best to earn because you got a place on the podium, edging out all the other finalists.  Nobody remembers who got fourth in an Olympic event.  One final thing, earning a Silver or Bronze does set an individual up for a higher medal when someone tests positive for performance enhancing drugs and is thus stripped of their hardware.

NHL - By far the greatest trophy in sports is in fact a trophy...The Stanley Cup.  Named for Lord Stanley (General Governor of Canada starting in 1888), who first presented a cup (actually it was a bowl) to the best amateur hockey team in Canada, it is the only trophy of a major sport's league in North America that is passed from one year's champion to the next.  Only one Stanley Cup exists.  What changes on it are the bands with the championship teams' player's names.  When all of the bands become full, one is removed and put into the Hockey Hall of Fame and a new blank one is added for future engraving.  What I think distinguishes this trophy is two things.  First, every player who wins this trophy is given 24 hours to do whatever they want with it.  For instance, when the Colorado Avalanche won one of their titles it was taken to the top of one of Colorado's 14,000 foot peaks.  Most people hold parties with the trophy and drink various beverages out of the silver cup that sits atop it, but the bottom line is, each person can do whatever they want for their 24 hours.  But, the greatest thing about the Stanley Cup is that if you're associated with hockey and you've never won it as a player or executive, YOU DON'T TOUCH THE CUP!!!  (I wish this applied to fans as well.  Some adhere to it, but others don't.  I promise, I will never lay a finger on the cup...can't do it...unless of course I become an NHL executive and my team wins it.)  Hockey people hold the Stanley Cup in reverence.  I hate when they have promotional shots for the Super Bowl and players and coaches are shown holding the trophy in advance of the game.  You haven't won it, put it down.  Numerous stories have been told about NHL players giving a wide berth to Lord Stanley's Cup if they're ever in a room with it.  The Stanley Cup is revered and I wish other sports would do the same with their championship trophies.