Has there been a wackier year in the world of professional golf?
A retrospective look at the past year simply must begin with the internecine power struggle between the existing (PGA Tour) and the emerging (LIV Golf) when it comes to golf’s professional circuits. All the opinions circulating and thoughts being offered are too numerous and nuanced to explore again in this small space, but as a magazine we’ve made one telling observation: in general, those against the upheaval tend to be Americans; the rest of the world seems to understand the appetite for change – and are hungry for it.
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Some players have opined that golf is ripping itself apart. That’s not quite right… professional golf might be ripping itself apart, and just men’s professional golf at that. The rest of the sport is humming along just fine.
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English writer and broadcaster Dan Walker made a salient point on Twitter in October: “LIV Golf is not the worst thing that has ever happened to the game… or the greatest innovation. The PGA Tour is not the sole guardian of all that is decent and right… or strangling the future. Stop with the insults and find a way forward.”
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Phil Mickelson has walked the line between audacious and awful on the golf course his entire career. This was the year when he felt the consequences of that same approach off the course.
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One more point on the PGA Tour vs LIV Golf: Greg Norman was at times reckless in key moments on the golf course, but as a businessman he’s been far more astute. With LIV, he’s ‘played’ like he’s been one step ahead all along.
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As well as representing progress, the R&A and USGA’s rules tweak from this month to better cater for golfers with disability also represents the game’s ability to adapt and evolve. But you can forget about the change most of you want: the ball-in-a-divot rule will never be altered, and that’s a good thing because golfers, too, occasionally need to adapt.
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Jack Newton was a titan of golf on the course, but his best legacy came away from it, primarily through his junior foundation. His career – and life – was among the most important and wide-reaching in the game, and its impact will far surpass the 72 years it lasted.
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Minjee Lee was ruthless at Pine Needles in capturing the US Women’s Open. There was a robotic, clinical nature to her play, even if she admitted to feeling more nervous than she appeared. Lee has the swing and demeanour to pulverise LPGA fields for years to come.
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Lydia Ko 2.0 looks imposing. Golf is better when the Kiwi star is near the top of the game. Oh, and her candid, on-air reference to her menstrual cycle and how it impacts her physically at tournaments deserved the applause it generated.
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Cameron Smith and Matt Fitzpatrick winning golf’s premier Open championships represented tremendous wins for the ‘little guys’. It’s also noteworthy to recall that in 2013, Smith won the Australian Amateur and Fitzpatrick claimed the US Amateur. An Australian was vanquished on both occasions, Geoff Drakeford surrendering a 5-up lead in the 36-hole final of our Amateur at Commonwealth Golf Club and Oliver Goss falling victim to Fitzpatrick in the final at The Country Club, the same course where the Englishman won the 2022 US Open. Drakeford and Goss were both considered prodigious talents at the time, yet today neither one even plays competitive golf.
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The photo of the year was the viral image from the PGA Championship of the lone man soaking in the moment as Tiger Woods struck a shot from close proximity. Amid a sea of phone-wielding spectators, Mark Radetic was unfettered by the need to record what he was watching. His ‘defiance’, if you will, was a reminder that creating a piece of footage costs you the sanctity of the moment – a moment that can be replayed in memory just as often as on a smartphone.
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If you’re looking for an insight into who might win the 2023 Masters, once again the 2022 edition provided proof that it’s golfers running hot (and winners already in the year) who fare best, as the two best golfers of January to April – Scottie Scheffler and Cam Smith – set the pace. Augusta National is a golf course that goads players into taking on risky shots in the pursuit of reward. It’s players riding a wave of confidence who are most comfortable with that risk.
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In a similar vein, Scheffler proved from February to June that when the best golfers run hot, they can still separate themselves from the rest in a game where that’s increasingly difficult to do. Staying hot is perhaps an even harder task.
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As much as we look at Smith’s grit, talent and exceptional short game and see the make-up of a future Masters winner, there are no guarantees in this game. Greg Norman was all but gifted a green jacket after his first few performances and yet it never materialised. Ditto with Jason Day. Smith deserves no such assurances.
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Justin Thomas appears to own more pugnacious fortitude than his peers (that is, until you don’t offer him a gimme in matchplay). Peering at the 54-hole leaderboard at the PGA Championship at Southern Hills, it looked ripe for a charge from back in the pack. That it was Thomas who gave the inexperienced leaders the most grief in the closing stages was of little surprise.
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Matt Fitzpatrick finally breaking through in America – and doing so in a Major, and at the same venue where he’d won the 2013 US Amateur, and just a month after coughing up a chance to win the PGA Championship – demonstrated that sometimes, just sometimes, the obvious pre-tournament narrative can fit the outcome.
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Cam Smith chose a helluva way and a helluva time to notch his first Major. St Andrews, the 150th Open Championship, trailing after three rounds, a final-nine of 30 in a Sunday 64 to reel in and deny the best player in the game. Smith’s play was as script-perfect as his sense of occasion.
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Yet the undisputed king of the men’s Majors in 2022 was not a player, but a hole. Or, a type of hole. When you look at the roles played by the third hole at Augusta National, the 17th at Southern Hills, the 12th and Home holes at the Old Course – among others – and the true king is the short par 4.
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One of the great ironies of golf in 2022 was how the man who won the oldest championship in the game was labelled a sellout for joining LIV Golf while the man who won the FedEx Cup – the most contrived, corporatised event in golf history – was labelled a man of honour and tradition.
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Forget the staggered-start Tour Championship, the most intriguing handicap tournament of the year was the PGA Tour’s Wyndham Championship, where 20-year-old Korean Tom Kim gave the whole field a four-shot headstart by making a quadruple-bogey 8 on his first hole. He won by five.
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Ignore the scoreline or individual records, Kim was the star of this year’s Presidents Cup. South Korean players who make any Presidents Cup side should be exempt from their country’s imposing and mandatory military-service commitment.
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Tweet of the Year goes to the golfer with one of those anonymous Twitter handles who tweeted: “Hats off to the club golfers who can hold down a full-time job, juggle family commitments and maintain a scratch handicap.”
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How weird was the year in golf? The 2022 Queensland Amateur Championship was held in New South Wales.
