You can only look at the major's to decide who's the best player of the year. It is quite clear that there are only a handful of stand out candidates. I was fortunate to see most of them play throught the year and this would be my top few:
1. Wu
It's widely accepted that the 9 ball WPC is the toughest tourny in the world to win. Winning this alone in any year would almost gaurantee the POY award unless another player won almost everything else. The fact he went on to win the world 8 ball as well makes it a no contest.
2. Manalo
In my eyes manalo is only a fraction behind wu, if wu hadn't won the world 8 ball chaps I think Manalo would have edged him. In his first trip to the US he win's reno (coming back from 6:0 down in the final!). He then goes on to win Hard Times, the ring game and also robbed Trex for 3.5k earning him 35k in two weeks! He then has a very good WPC and was absolutely robbed against Wu, who knows what would have happened if he had beat him. He does ok in US Open but makes up for it winning the jersey straight pool champs. Add to that his astonishing feat at the KOTH (where he was unlucky again) and the 100k win then I think most will agree that it's only wu's exceptional acheivment that kept Manalo from taking the prize!
3. Efren Reyes
Efren has had a very poor middle part of the year by his own standards. However he dominated DCC at the start of the year, I think he won the Japan Open and of course came storming back to win the KOTH event. It's great to see him back playing well again but he hasnt done enough this year to be ahead of wu and manalo
4. Alex P
Anyone that wins the US Open as the second strongest field in world 9 ball deserves a mention. And this years 256 strong field despite its lack of Asian players was exceptionally strong. Alex also won a few of the second tier tournys and had decent showings at the WPC etc.
5. Hohman
The BCA event is one of the majors but its still an invite only event with a restricted field. None the less hohmans performance to whitewash Archer 7:0 in the finals was very impressive. Other than that he's had a fairly quite year compared to the above.
Honourable mentions:
Bustamante
He had a purple patch during the last half of the year, winning the joss finals, carolinas and a few other smaller events. Only to top it off with his great 3rd place finish in the US Open. He also came close in the KOTH. Good to see him back in form
Feijin, Chamet, Engert, Immonen, Van Den Berg
These great european players have had some impressive results and always seem to finish high wherever they play. Feijin won the big apple and chamet won the world summit. Engert went close too. Immonen won the korea open and they all have done well on Euro Tour. Van Den Berg of course had high finishes in both the WPC and US Open.
Earl has had somewhat of a resurgance in form in the latter part of the year with some high finishes. If he only had wu's coconut!
Sorry if I missed a few out but thats my impression of 2005 from what I saw/read.
But like I said before hohman was about 10 times more healthy than me in both Korea and Taiwan but yes we'll never know if it effected him.
