The 2009 PGA Championship, the year’s last Major golf tournament, came to a stunning conclusion on Sunday, as South Korean, Y.E. Yang, a man no one had heard of, managed to take down the world’s best golfer in the final round. While the record books will have to wait a little longer for Tiger Woods to rewrite them, the finale was wonderful, and we should hope to see more finishes like this one in the future. The true test of greatness in an athlete is how well he responds to pressure.

It remains to be seen if Y.E. Yang will be but a splash in the pan, but there are some strong candidates emerging who will challenge Woods in the upcoming years. The first name that comes to mind is Padraig Harrington. Although he had a disastrous Sunday at Hazeltine – a quintuple bogey on the 8th hole put him out of contention – he has shown consistency and mental fortitude over the last two years, the likes of which few golfers can claim. There are others as well, but the name you should remember is Rory McIlroy.

Born and raised in Northern Ireland, the 20 year old McIlroy has long been touted as the future of golf, and with his development this past year, the future may come sooner than expected. In 2009, McIlroy played in the first four Majors of his career and incredibly made the cut in all of them. It started in April at The Masters where he finished the weekend in a tie for 20th. In June, he followed that up with a 10th place tie at the U.S Open. July’s Open Championship (commonly known as The British Open) was tougher for him, as he only managed a t-47th place finish, but keep in mind that Tiger Woods didn’t even make the cut at this tournament. Finally, this past weekend, McIlroy put together his best performance yet at a Major tournament, finishing tied for 3rd at -3.

The youngster also won his first professional golf tournament this year at the Dubai Desert Open in February. At the tender age of 20, McIlroy has achieved his success so far based on mental strength and god-gifted power. With only a few months left on golf’s 2009 calendar and then an off-season before the next Major, he will have some time to work on the variety and maturity of his game, and he will likely improve by leaps and bounds in 2010.

Woods, Harrington and the rest better be careful when they look in the rear-view mirror: objects are closer than they appear.

After years of following golf, attempting to recognize and understand talent and to figure out which players will perform well in any given week, I have realized that trying to predict who will win a PGA tournament is like playing roulette. Instead of choosing from 38 numbers, you can choose anyone ranked in the world’s top 50 and most have an equal shot at winning.

Of course, heading into the 2009 US Open Championship, there are a few players with higher odds than the table’s 1 in 38 chances. Picking Tiger Woods or Jim Furyk this week can be equated to choosing the “first 12” spot on the roulette board. Woods’ game is rounding into form at the right time, and he showed this by winning the Memorial Tournament two weeks ago over a strong field. Perhaps the most promising aspect of the win was the fact that he was hitting straight and true with his driver, the club that failed him repeatedly at the Masters earlier this year. Jim Furyk finished second at the Memorial, but more impressive is his consistency of late. He has three top 10 finishes in the last 6 weeks, including a fifth place finish at the Players Championship on May 10th; a tournament in which Woods finished eighth. Quality performances at this one, the tournament the players consider to be “the fifth Major”, hold a lot of weight.

Picking from the rest of the field is a gamble, but you know what they say – high risk, high reward. A few other players have been playing well recently: Zach Johnson and Vijay Singh are past Major champions and both could be in the mix this week.

Canadians may be wondering what’s going on with our two enigmatic hopefuls. Both Stephen Ames and Mike Weir have the ability to beat the best and win a Major and they’ve been playing fairly well lately. Ames finished ninth at the Valero Texas Open on May 17th, and then 27th two weeks later at the Crowne Plaza Invitational, while Weir has three top 20 finishes in the past six weeks, including placing 14th at the Players Championship. It may be hard to see these seemingly average results as positive, but in golf, where one never knows who will win a particular tournament, the ones who have the best chance are those who put themselves in the mix consistently. That being said, it looks like Weir has tuned his game to peak for this year’s US Open Championship, and Canada should put their hopes behind him.

Other than that, look for breakouts from the young gun, Camilo Villegas, and the extremely young gun, Rory McIlroy. It shouldn’t be long until these two are winning tournaments.

Armed with this information, make your bets. Choose your players and book your wagers. Then just sit back, enjoy the ride, and wait for the ball to drop on Sunday evening.