Vijay Singh - NOT the Second Best Player of His Generation

In response to A battle between Phil and Vijay for No. 2:

It is unfortunite that I must declare, here, now and forever, that Vijay Singh will never be considered, in my eyes, the second greatest player of his generation. I go a step further - he is not, in my opinion, the greatest non-American player to play on the PGA Tour.

If based purely on statistics, it would be hard to deny Singh's dominance as the premier international player of his time, if not all-time. But if we base these judgements on stats alone, then Barry Bonds is the greatest hitter in baseball history. If you don't know, I am referring to the incident in 1985, when Singh was accused of cheating on the Asian Tour, and was subsequently suspended from that tour.

Golf is a game that, above all else, demands the complete honesty and integrity of its players. Contrary to other sports, where often the general rule is "do what you can get away with," the rule of golf is "do what is right." If you can't follow this rule, then you are not worthy of mention in the history of the game.

I understand that, at the time, Vijay's success meant more to him as a paycheck than a moral victory. Life is not always easy for men and women that are struggling to make it out there on the professional tours, especially ones that aren't the PGA Tour, and even more so 20 years ago than today.

But the way I see it, it is a blessing to even have the opportunity to play golf for a paycheck. Let's face it - golf is a luxury entertainment business. There are still billions of people on this planet who can't put food on the table consistently. Playing golf doesn't help that fact. If you are worried about putting food on the table, then maybe you don't belong playing professional golf. There are countless other things that you could be doing to contribute tangible value to society.

If you want to try and make it big in golf, you are certainly welcome to try. But cheating your way to success is taking it too far. If you try your best and fail, then go back to the real world and do something productive. Get a job like the rest of us. Yes, if Vijay Singh would have quit back in 1985 and gotten himself a job in the real world, the world would have been "deprived" of what he's done since then. But think of all that you yourself have contributed to the world in the past 20 years. Would the world be a better place if Vijay Singh didn't play golf? It's certainly possible...