Given that we're closing in on the end of 2009 and the decade of the 2000s, there have been and will be quite a number of retrospective pieces on the last decade in golf.  Best years, shots, and memories are generally the topics.  Some recall the worst chokejobs or things that most superstitious golfers would rather not see for fear that it would creep into their own games.

But, perhaps unlike any other in quite some time, 2009 was truly the year of what may have been.  The focus on that true cliche has been on the men's majors. 

If only Tiger or Phil had kept it together at Augusta.  Perhaps if Kenny Perry didn't tank with two holes to play, we would be relentlessly looping his approach to the 16th hole. 

If anyone not named Lucas Glover found a way to win at soggy Bethpage, we would have had an open for the ages.  Instead, Lefty owns the record for most times a bridesmaid in our national championship, and David Duval is set to play in Q-school.  (Fortunately, Ricky Barnes has his Tour card.)

Were Tom Watson somehow able to land his ball just one foot shorter at Turnberry, then he would be the Sportsman of the Year, the man of the decade, and perhaps golf's greatest legend.  Instead, the fate of links golf inserted him into a playoff with a fresher, younger Stewart Cink.  He now holds the Claret Jug.

And we all know about how YE Yang became golf's first David to Tiger Woods' Goliath.  Yang's hole out for eagle at 14 and his gutsy approach to the final hole were exclamation points on a season of surprise in men's majors.

But what about the ladies of the LPGA Tour?  What could have been turned out to be equally heartbreaking, but also life saving.

Had Brittany Lincicome not hit her incredible approach to the 72nd hole at the Kraft Nabisco, then Cristie Kerr would win a second major and golf may have lost one of its best shots of the year.

Again, had Kerr been able to keep it together just a little longer at Saucon Valley, she would be our national champion for a second time and perhaps the stake in American soil that proved the red, white, and blue would not go quietly from the upper crust of the LPGA Tour.

That US Women's Open, though, will be remembered more for what fortunately did happen off of the course.  In what is now termed the "bloodless coup," a player signature-ladden letter arrived on then commissioner Carolyn Bivens' desk.  It pleaded for her resignation in the face of seemingly irreparable damage to the Tour's relationship with sponsors, tournament owners, and players. 

The ploy worked and former Admiral Marty Evans was installed as interim commissioner - ironically, because she was a board member brought on through friends of the former commish.  Evans logged some 45,000 miles in the air, according to reports, to bring the Tour's schedule count up from nine on the day that Bivens resigned.  The 2010 LPGA Tour schedule boasts 23 events, a miraculous turnaround given the kind of Sherman-eqsue path that Bivens blazed.

Now the LPGA Tour sits in the hands of Michael Whan.  The man clearly has infinitely more golf and board room experience than Bivens did.  By all accounts, the man appears capable of grasping the LPGA's core problems and trying to address them - not by mandates, but through partnerships.  Though it is also evident that there is still a learning curve for Whan in terms of the Tour's history and heavy politics, Whan does appear willing to learn quickly.

Had Bivens not been ousted, there is a decent chance that not only would the tour have a schedule boasting an event count in the teens, but that both events that the LPGA Tour now owns and operates would not be played.  Were it not for securing Wegmans' place as title sponsor in Rochester, the LPGA would have no home for its own championship.  If it were somehow unable to merge these two events together for the 2010 year, the LPGA could have received the ultimate humilation - the inability to play its signature tournament. 

What might have been may have prevented there being a "what will be" for the Tour celebrating 60 seasons.  The most successful women's sporting league in history could have been in serious danger.  And though the Tour continues to be overshadowed by Tiger and the PGA Tour by many multiples, that kind of damage to the LPGA Tour would have had far-reaching ripple effects into the game.  Thankfully, that problem was avoided.

I can take El Pato, Lucas, Cink, and Yang as my major champions.  But for the sake of millions of golf fans, thousands of aspiring and current female pros, and the millions of women that play golf, I'm glad that '09 turned out to be the year of what may have been.