In golf (and most other sports), when the tournament is over so is your opportunity to get the results changed because of a potential rules violation. If Felipe Massa has his way, that won’t be the case in Formula 1 racing. The Brazilian driver was caught up in the famous “Crashgate” scandal of 2008 when a wreck involving Nelson Piquet Jr ended up helping Piquet’s teammate win a race — and costing Massa the season-long driver’s championship by a point.

All of that would have been (bitter) water under the bridge had it not come out that not only did Piquet Jr intentionally crash on orders from his team, but Formula 1 head Bernie Ecclestone was quoted saying he and other racing executives knew about it and decided not to investigate — or potentially throw out the results of the race while there was still time to do so.

Felipe Massa is exploring a lawsuit against Formula 1 for damages from lost income he did not receive by being denied the World Championship title in 2008 due to what he says was a blundered ruling. Darren Heath

Massa has now filed paperwork stating he intends to sue Formula 1 for the millions he says he would have earned because of a boost to his marketability as a world champion.

If Massa’s suit succeeds and establishes a precedent that works across sports, it sets up some fascinating opportunities for golfers (or their estates) to potentially polish their résumés retroactively.

Arnold Palmer was one shot ahead of Ken Venturi at the 1958 Masters when his tee shot on the par-3 12th embedded behind the green. He and Venturi agreed it was plugged — and that Palmer should get relief, according to the local rule in effect. The rules official walking with the group disagreed and told Palmer to play the ball as it lay. Palmer did — sort of. He chopped out, chipped on and two-putted for double.

He then declared he would play a second ball in protest and dropped near the plug location. Palmer made par with that ball, and the committee later decided his three would count — a decision many believed was contrary to the rules. Palmer would win by a shot over Fred Hawkins and Doug Ford and by two over Venturi. Venturi would go on to become a major champion at the 1964 US Open, but Hawkins would probably be more of a household name instead of a footnote in history had things gone differently.

Seve Ballesteros and Paul Azinger had a legendary heated feud that started at the 1989 Ryder Cup where a singles match turned contentious. On the second green, Ballesteros said his ball was damaged; Azinger protested to a referee, who said the Spaniard had to keep the ball in play. Fast forward to the last hole, and Azinger hit his tee shot in the water. As Azinger was taking his drop, Ballesteros felt he was doing so from a more advantageous spot then he was entitled.

Azinger was able to get up near the green with his next shot, and a steamed Ballesteros hit it in the water to seal a 1-down loss. The result would end up depriving Europe of an outright victory, even though they were able to keep possession of the Cup by virtue of a 14-14 tie. A half point won’t change the individual Ryder Cup legacy for either Ballesteros or Azinger, but three straight outright team wins would look pretty good on the historical register.

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For the second year in a row, the business of golf and upheaval in the game is preceding the US Open. Last year, it was the launch of the LIV Golf League. This time, it’s the news of the PGA Tour merging with the DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the entity that backs LIV Golf, striking an historic joint operating arrangement.

For NBC Sports, which will be providing a record 200-plus hours of coverage next week from Los Angeles Country Club across NBC, USA Network and its Peacock streaming service, the distraction really is no distraction at all. The first US Open in Los Angeles since 1948, conducted in the shadow of Hollywood, on the challenging North Course at LACC, supersedes anything else going on in the golf world.

NBC golf anchor Dan Hicks said the US Open comes “at the perfect time on the perfect course,” because it enables viewers to shut out the ongoing news surrounding the future of the game—crucial because that future right now has so many unknowns.

“I’m really rooting for this US Open to rescue us all, even for a few days from the story that I think everybody knows has been so divisive,” Hicks said from Paris, where he is covering the French Open tennis championship, during a conference call previewing the championship. “And I think that the LACC North Course is just the place to do that.

“We’ve all been immersed in this story, and frankly, it’s been pretty exhausting. Speculation … I don’t think anybody knows how this is going to go. I really believe that this golf course, this US Open come at the right time for us to be distracted by everything that’s going on and really enjoy the game. It will be interesting. The vibe will be different, no doubt about it. The guys, when they come to town, they’re going to be asked about it. When the gun goes off on Thursday, I think that’s going to be a relief for everyone.”

Hicks was joined on the call by lead analyst Paul Azinger, and commentators Brad Faxon and John Wood. Reporters were permitted to only ask questions about the US Open, so the four did not delve into Tuesday’s explosive news. Except to say that coverage of the year’s third major won’t delve into the explosive news. And probably what viewers want.

“When [Masters chairman] Fred Ridley had all these players from LIV come in and compete against the PGA Tour players for the first time [in a major], he said, ‘Look, we’re going to all get along. There’s going to be no distractions here,’’’ said Faxon, the former tour player added to NBC/Golf Channel this year. “And I think the USGA has the ability to do that as well. Say, ‘Let’s make this about the US Open, let’s not make this about two different tours.’ … The message is going to be the same as what Fred Ridley said at the Masters—let’s play golf and let’s all get along.”

Azinger, the network’s lead analyst, said that producer Tommy Roy will set the tone for the team, so he wasn’t worried about coverage getting off track. Not one bit.

“When we show up, trust me, it is all business and it is all live golf,” said Azinger, who shot 73 at LACC to qualify for his first US Open in 1983. “Everything that Tommy Roy and Tommy Randolph and their crew … there are too many people to name … the preparation and the scouting that went into showcasing this golf tournament, Thursday is when that all clicks into gear. The second we see Tommy Roy’s face, we’re going to know what our priority is and that’s live golf. Not opinions and not innuendos. We know we have the two best producers in the world trying to produce a US Open to the best of their ability and we’re going to try to call it and it is going to be a relief to everybody because it’s live golf.”

Wood, the former tour caddie, added, “All the outside noise is going to go away once you’re inside the ropes; hitting shots or calling shots, that noise just goes away.”

Ben Hogan won the last US Open in L.A., in 1948 at Riviera Country Club. And it was at Riviera in early 1950 that he made his miraculous comeback to golf less than a year after his near-fatal auto accident in 1949. It was the stuff of Hollywood—which, of course, turned into exactly that with a movie, “Follow the Sun.” Nothing so dramatic is likely to unfold next week as Matt Fitzpatrick defends his title, but that doesn’t mean a great story isn’t waiting to be told.

“Sports is the best reality show on television,” Hicks said. “Again, this US Open, I think it comes at the perfect time. Sports has a way of winning the day. I think our game needs it now more than ever. It’s the perfect venue to deliver all of that. We’re right in the middle of Hollywood. Let’s write a great Hollywood script. I think that’s the best way to counter everything we’ve seen in golf.”

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By Daniel Rapaport
The Ryder Cup affords golf fans the unique opportunity to watch a generation’s best players join forces. The results aren’t always positive—looking at you, Mickelson/Woods 2004—but when the pieces fit just right and the putts start to fall, magic happens. Seve Ballesteros and Jose Maria Olazabal projected an air of impassioned invincibility. Patrick Reed and Jordan Spieth exuded a youthful bravado. Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari made golf look impossibly easy and irresistibly enjoyable.

Those power duos inspired a thought experiment: Say you’re the captain of an all-time Ryder Cup team. Ages do not matter, nor do physical concerns like distance or equipment. You can choose any two Americans and any two Europeans to play together, regardless of era. Who would you take? (And no, you can’t use Seve more than once). Our answers are as follows.

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Ryder Cup Rewatchables: Henrik Stenson’s Cup Clinching Putt in 2006

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Seve Ballesteros/Ian Poulter

Their competitiveness alone would be enough to kill a horse. Ballesteros, part of the European “Famous Five” that played a role in elevating the Ryder Cup to the massive institution it is today, endeared himself to his teammates and incensed his opponents with his hard-nosed, combative style and his sheer unwillingness to lose. Poulter hasn’t matched Ballesteros’ record in golf tournaments not named the Ryder Cup, but the Englishman has emerged as a spiritual offspring of sorts, serving as the emotional spark for the six teams he’s played on and compiling a 14-6-2 overall record with a 5-0-1 singles mark. There’d be fist pumps and guttural yells, belly laughs and probably an awkward moment of contention with the Americans. It’d be delicious.

Paul Azinger/Justin Thomas

The American answer to the above pair. Azinger and Ballesteros clashed in the 1989 and 1991 Ryder Cup, with the Spaniard accusing the Floridian of lying after a particularly testy face-off at Kiawah Island. Azinger refused to back down from Ballesteros, beating him 1 up on European soil in the first singles match in ’89 but losing both his matches alongside Chip Beck to the Ballesteros/Olazabal powerhouse in ’91. Azinger’s overall record is a pedestrian 5-7-3, but this is less about wanting to win and more about wanting to watch him and Seve go at it. Thomas, on the other hand, is off to a 4-1-0 start in his Ryder Cup career after he was a rare bright spot for the Americans in Paris. He relished the chance to face Rory McIlroy in the first singles match and beat him, too. There’s not a more competitive player on this year’s American side and his fiery tendencies should play well in the many Ryder Cups in his future.

Bernhard Langer/Henrik Stenson

Two stone-cold ball-striking assassins. Langer, another Famous Fiver, played on 10 Ryder Cup teams and ranks third all-time in points won with 24—despite his Ryder Cup career being most closely associated with his missed five-footer at Kiawah in 1991. Stenson, known affectionately as the Ice Man, has gone 10-7-2 in his five Ryder Cup appearances. Think of this duo as the anti-Ballesteros/Poulter; while those guys are making miraculous up-and-down pars and infuriating their opponents with their celebrations, Langer/Stenson would wear you out with fairways and greens, and hardly smile as they polish off a 4-and-3 victory.

Tiger Woods/Jack Nicklaus

Who wouldn’t want to watch the consensus best and second-best players of all-time—we’ll let you decide the order—tee it up together? Nicklaus and Woods are two different men with two different styles of competing, but it’s what they share that makes this such a tantalizing what-if: prodigious length, flawless execution under pressure and a propensity for making huge putts in massive moments. Give prime Jack Nicklaus 2021 equipment and we’re willing to bet he could keep up with early 2000s Tiger Woods, who was the longest player on the planet. No U.S. captain could ever quite figure out a perfect partner for Woods—he’s an awful 9-19-1 in non-singles matches—but something tells us he and the Golden Bear would click just fine. Real recognize real, as the kids say.

Arnold Palmer/Phil Mickelson

Palmer became universally loved for his daring style, legendary kindness and an ability to naturally mingle with fans. No one is Palmer, but when it comes to fan adoration and go-for-broke style, Mickelson is about as close as we’ve got. Palmer’s Ryder Cup career came mostly during the non-competitive years of the 1960s and 1970s, so we’d love to see how he’d react to the spirited dynamic now that continental Europe is involved. The galleries following this one would be good for a few holes, because even the most hostile European crowd wouldn’t be able to root against Lefty and The King. Damn, that has a nice ring to it.

Jordan Spieth/Lee Trevino

They’d simply never shut up, and it’d be hilarious to witness. Spieth’s constant narration of his round and his Michael! shouts to his caddie would pair beautifully with Trevino’s aimless musings and classic one-liners. Plus, Trevino’s ball-striking combined with Spieth’s short-game magic could produce an unrivaled foursomes duo. They’re also both from Texas, albeit from vastly different backgrounds—Spieth grew up at the country club, Trevino working on the cotton fields. Something tells us these two would have loved playing with each other.

Tommy Fleetwood/Francesco Molinari

Stuart Franklin

They were already good pals going into the 2018 Ryder Cup, but they left it joined as one: Moliwood. The two won all four matches rather easily in Paris—including three over Tiger—and could not have enjoyed themselves more in the process. Yes, we know, the point of this exercise is to pair two players of different eras … but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. #MoliwoodForever.

Anthony Kim/Patrick Reed

You could put Anthony Kim with anyone and they’d probably make it on this list. That’s how much we miss AK, who was so perfectly in his element at the only Ryder Cup he played, in 2008, when he went 2-1-1 and crushed Sergio Garcia in singles. He was Captain America before Captain America, so to speak. And while Reed’s Ryder Cup reputation has taken a hit with a poor performance in Paris (and his blabbering afterwards), early career Patrick Reed was an absolutely all-time Ryder Cup character. Pairing a 23-year-old AK and a 23-year-old P-Reed would be a whole mess of chaotic brashness in the best way possible. If only.

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By John Feinstein
Brooks Koepka made headlines last week in an interview with Golf Digest in which he expressed frustration with the challenges of being part of a team once every two years in the Ryder Cup. Paul Azinger then made headlines responding to Koepka’s comments by saying if he wasn’t excited about playing in this week’s matches at Whistling Straits he should stay home and cede his spot to someone who might be more eager to play.

Koepka is a four-time major champion and a two-time Ryder Cupper, whose play will almost certainly be critical to the success of Steve Stricker’s team this coming weekend. Azinger is a four-time Ryder Cupper, who captained the Americans in 2008—one of two U.S. teams to win the cup this century.

MORE: Everything American captain Steve Stricker needs to know to whip the Euros

MORE: Everything European captain Padraig Harrington needs to know to spank the Yanks

Koepka’s not wrong about the unique pressures of the Ryder Cup. Azinger’s not wrong in thinking attitude is very important inside a team room.

One of the reasons many—most—players crave playing in the Ryder Cup is because it is unique in that you are playing for your teammates, for your country and for everyone with access (wives, caddies, former Ryder Cuppers) to the oh-so-off-limits team rooms. It isn’t, as Koepka points out, just about you. In the week-to-week tournaments that go on around the world, including the four majors, you succeed or you fail. Period. It is why golf is so difficult mentally. It’s all on you.

But the Ryder Cup is different. At the end of the weekend, individual records really don’t matter very much. All that matters is the team result. In his final moment on the Ryder Cup stage in 1999, Payne Stewart conceded a putt to Colin Montgomerie on the 18th green that gave the match to Montgomerie. Why?

“Because after what Colin had gone through all day [with boorish American fans], I wasn’t making him putt that ball,” Stewart said. “We’d already won the cup. That was all that mattered.”

More often than not, comments like Koepka’s come from players who haven’t yet experienced the intensity and the exhilaration of a Ryder Cup week. When Rory McIlroy first qualified for Montgomerie’s 2010 European team in Wales, he was asked about how he felt knowing he’d be on the team.

“It’s nice,” he said. “I look forward to it. But being honest, it’s an exhibition. My No. 1 goal is to win major championships.”

Montgomerie, who is a lot smarter than most people think, smiled when he was asked about McIlroy’s comments. “He’ll learn,” he said. “He won’t feel that way once he gets there.”

Monty was right. “I knew about 15 minutes after I got there that I’d been wrong,” McIlroy said, able to laugh at himself years later. “I realized this was really a big deal.”

He has since played in five Ryder Cups—winning four—and has never sat out a session.

Ramsey Cardy
Koepka wasn’t wrong in acknowledging the challenges of changing from a individual to a team mind-set at the Ryder Cup.

Koepka was 3-1 for the winning U.S. team at Hazeltine National in 2016 and 1-2-1 in Europe’s win in Paris in 2018. That’s 4-3-1, certainly respectable, especially given that very few Americans who have played in this century have winning records. Tiger Woods, who never really embraced the Ryder Cup emotionally, is 13-21-3 and the eight teams he played on went 1-7. Phil Mickelson, who still hasn’t completely gotten over not being picked for Tom Watson’s team in 1993, has played in 12 Ryder Cups and is 18-22-7 individually. The teams he played on went 3-9.

Sergio Garcia will be playing in the matches for the 10th time this weekend. He first played at Brookline in 1999 as a teen-ager and has a 22-12-7 record individually and his teams are 6-3. Perhaps more important, Garcia says that not playing in the 2010 matches, when his career was at a low ebb, rekindled his fire and love for the game. Montgomerie invited him to be there as a vice-captain, and Garcia said being there and not playing made him realize how much he loved competing.

A Ryder Cup team room is a tension-filled place. Players and captains on both teams—but mostly on the American side—spend the four days prior to the matches beginning on Friday talking about how much fun the players are having with one another. For several years, the Americans talked (and talked) about how much they were enjoying playing ping-pong with one another. Interestingly, the one year the Americans won since ping-pong tables were put in the team room—2016—no one played ping-pong. Why? Because that American team genuinely got along with one another.

It isn’t as if the Europeans sit around and sing kumbaya in their team room. Ian Poulter, who might just be the best Ryder Cup player ever, described it best: “There are guys in our room who don’t get along,” he said. “Human nature—12 guys from different countries with different backgrounds, there are bound to be differences. But for one week every two years, we take all the differences and leave them outside the door of the team room. Then we pick them up again on the way out.”

Poulter has played in six Ryder Cups—and his team has lost just once (2008). In 2016, when he was injured and couldn’t play, the U.S. won. Poulter was a vice-captain but said himself his impact was minimal since he couldn’t play. He played in Paris in 2018 and will be on Padraig Harrington’s team as a captain’s pick this weekend.

Harrington picked Poulter (and Garcia) over players with better records this season for one simple reason: they’re Poulter and Garcia. Stricker, on the other hand, passed on Patrick Reed, who played so well in his first two Ryder Cups that he earned the nickname, “Captain America.” Reed’s relationship with his teammates hasn’t always been warm, and Stricker apparently decided he didn’t need any more issues than the one he already has to deal with because of the Koepka-Bryson DeChambeau feud.

Christian Petersen
Despite his potential reservations about the competition, Koepka is 4-3-1 in his two starts, a respectable record given the Americans struggles in the event.

Brooks and Bryson can talk all they want this week about how they’ve put their differences behind them claim that much of the problem is media-created. The fact is they don’t like each other.

Koepka saying he doesn’t like having to depend on others in order to be successful once every two years is both honest and a little bit silly. Teammates do depend on one another. There will certainly be moments, especially in foursomes, when Koepka will need to bail out a partner. There will also be moments when his partner will bail him out.

At Hazeltine National on Friday morning, Mickelson was so tight playing foursomes, he could barely keep a ball in play. Rickie Fowler got the Americans out of one jam after another and made every important putt. The Americans won the match against McIlroy and Andy Sullivan, 1 up.

By Sunday evening, as the Americans gleefully sprayed champagne all over the place, no one remembered Mickelson’s play on Friday morning. That’s the beauty of the Ryder Cup. The team is what matters.

I honestly believe Brooks Koepka will figure that out sooner or later.

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By Alex Myers
The captain’s picks have all been made for the 2021 Ryder Cup, but one former captain was pretty vocal on Wednesday about a potential personnel change.

Paul Azinger weighed in on comments Brooks Koepka made about the biennial event in a recent interview with Golf Digest Middle East. In the interview, Koepka talked about the challenges—both on and off the course—of a Ryder Cup where “you go from an individual sport all the time to a team sport one week a year.”

It’s an adjustment that all participants go through. But the comments caught the attention of many, including the 2008 winning American captain.

“Brooks, I just read that article, I’m not sure he loves the Ryder Cup that much,” Azinger said during an NBC Golf call with the media. “If he doesn’t love it, he should relinquish his spot and get people there who do love the Ryder Cup.”

Wow. Go on, Paul …

“Not everybody embraces it. But if you don’t love it, and you’re not sold out, then I think Brooks should, you know, especially being hurt, consider whether or not he really wants to be there.”

But wait! There’s more!

“And then if you add the Bryson dynamic to that, that might be an easier decision for him. But Brooks is one of the most candid, most honest guys there ever is and if he’s blatantly honest with himself and he doesn’t want to be there, he should come out and say it. But, I don’t know, I’m a fan of both players, and I just feel like it’s gonna be one or the other. They’re gonna put the weight of the team on their shoulders or they’re gonna be a pain in the neck.”

Wow, that’s a lot. Among other things, Azinger alluded to Koepka’s wrist injury, which caused him to withdraw during the third round of the Tour Championship. And, of course, there’s Koepka’s highly publicised feud with teammate Bryson DeChambeau.

If Koepka doesn’t play, the most likely replacement candidates seem to be recent Ryder Cup star Patrick Reed and Billy Horschel, who won the BMW PGA Championship on Sunday.

Koepka wasn’t seen in videos of Team USA holding practice at Whistling Straits on Sunday and Monday. When asked the previous week, though, about his playing status, captain Steve Stricker said this: “We’re not there yet. We’ll deal with that situation if it happens.”

We’re guessing he wasn’t counting on a former captain calling out Koepka becoming part of that situation.

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By Golf Digest Editors
Not since 2001 has there been a year in which the golf world was so profoundly impacted by something “outside the ropes” as 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic. From the moment late in the evening of Thursday, March 12, when a stunned Jay Monahan, commissioner of the PGA Tour, announced the cancellation of the Players Championship after just one round—the first of several similarly profound (and surreal) declarations from executives throughout the golf community in the days that followed—our sport has been shaken at every level. The saving grace of the coronavirus is that golf has been able to serve as a salve in so many ways for a general public longing for order and comfort and the familiar. Participation in the recreational game skyrocketed, golf becoming an outlet for those in need of distraction as it proved to be among the safer sports to play. And consumption of the competitive game increased as well, Monahan bringing back the PGA Tour in June, the LPGA and European Tours returning shortly after, the majority of the men’s and women’s majors played successfully at later dates, without fans but not without fanfare.

While the days run together during a pandemic, the calendar professes 2020 is coming to a close (finally!). Which means it’s time to embark on our annual review of the last 12 months. As always, our “Newsmakers” package aims to revisit the year in golf and retell the stories that helped define the sport. In counting down the top 25 during the next several days, many entries have been directly touched by the spectre of COVID-19. But you also might be surprised at how many of our favourite people, events and moments rose above the pandemic and stood out for what they said about the individual or the group. As always there were a few clear choices—spoiler alert, Bryson DeChambeau is pretty high on our list—but also some characters who are less obvious yet, we think, no less worthy, once again, of our collective appreciation. —Ryan Herrington

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No. 1: THE ‘NEW’ GOLFERS

J.D. Cuban

Two decades ago, a golf boom was spurred by a magnetic young star named Tiger Woods and an expanding real estate market. The 2020 version, borne from a pandemic in which no one could do much else, was never part of anyone’s grow-the-game strategy. But a year in which COVID-19 disrupted so much of life provided an unlikely opening for golf. According to the National Golf Foundation and Golf Datatech, there will be some 50 million more rounds played in 2020 than 2019, an increase partially attributed to good weather, but mostly the serendipitous ways golf fit a social distancing world. Those who couldn’t go to work or the gym could still meet up with friends and play 9 or 18. Handshakes were replaced by elbow bumps and a whole new cottage industry arose in developing creative ways to safely extract a golf ball from the hole. Other than that, the game remained blessedly intact. While the year-end statistics point to an encouraging influx of new players—about 20 percent more beginners and junior players, respectively—the surge appears to have been driven more by core golfers who were simply afforded the chance to play more. Yet one could argue those of us who had played all along were still “new” golfers this year. Because we were suddenly around to play at Wednesday at 2. Because we stored our masks and our hand sanitiser in the same golf bag pocket as our keys. And because every trip to the golf course was a welcome refuge from a distressing new world. We might have always loved golf, but in 2020, we savoured it like never before. —Sam Weinman

• • •

No. 2: BRYSON DECHAMBEAU

Chris Keane

Where do we begin? There’s so much to talk about with Bryson DeChambeau that we created a separate list of 101 things that happened to him in 2020. But first and foremost, Bryson became one of the game’s biggest stars. Literally. A process of putting on pounds that began in 2019 revved up even more during quarantine, and when DeChambeau returned, he was some 40 pounds heavier than the previous year. And the gains were apparent in places other than the scale. DeChambeau overpowered golf courses—and even driving ranges—in ways we hadn’t quite seen before. The 27-year-old wound up leading the PGA Tour in driving distance in the 2019-’20 season and, more importantly, strokes gained/off the tee. But Bryson didn’t just drive for show, he also putted for some serious dough by improving to a career-best 10th in strokes gained/putting. Not surprisingly, that dangerous combination eventually led to a pair of wins, first at the Rocket Mortgage Classic in July and then his maiden major title at the U.S. Open in September. Winged Foot’s treacherous rough was supposed to be this golf zealot’s kryptonite, but it proved to be no problem for mighty Bryson as he swatted driver after driver on his way to a dominant six-shot victory. And in doing so, he may have ushered in a new era in which extreme length isn’t just an advantage, but a necessity. “What he’s done in the gym has been incredible,” Tiger Woods said at the Masters in November. “What he’s done on the range and what he’s done with his entire team to be able to optimize that one club [driver] and transform his game and the ability to hit the ball as far as he has and in as short a span as he has, it’s never been done before.” Beyond all the results, though, was Bryson’s knack for creating buzz. From those booming drives to his crazy diet to an aggressive shirtless photo to run-ins with rules officials to continued run-ins with Brooks Koepka, DeChambeau was constantly in the news. And whether you’re a fan or not, this overpowering and analytical golfer isn’t going anywhere. In fact, there will undoubtedly be a lot more like him to follow. —Alex Myers

• • •

No. 3: GOLF’S STAKEHOLDERS

If golf were Gotham and every leader in the game had a red Bat Phone on the desk, the ringing would have been incessant on Thursday, March 12, 2020. In the hours after sunset that day, the PGA Tour decided it could no longer safely stage one of its prized events, the Players Championship, and shut it down after only one round. It was golf’s COVID-19 reality check. The coronavirus wasn’t going to be a mild inconvenience. It was going to rock our world at every turn, and the stakeholders in competitive golf would have to face it head-on. It was a daunting proposition, considering there are so many voices in the choir—the PGA Tour (led by Jay Monahan), PGA of America (Seth Waugh), USGA (Mike Davis), Augusta National (Fred Ridley), R&A (Martin Slumbers), LPGA (Mike Whan) and European Tour (Keith Pelley). They all have personal interests and agendas, with cumulative billions of dollars at stake. But in a fairly remarkable accomplishment, golf’s presidents and CEOs and COOs and tournament directors—along with the medical community and the athletes themselves—glued the year’s broken pieces back together into a one-of-a-kind mosaic. Recalling those manic moments of March and April, Slumbers, chief executive officer of the R&A, told Golf Digest, “In those 13 to 14 days, we covered ground that in normal time would have taken a year’s worth of thinking.” To be sure, there were sad casualties, the most wrenching being the Open Championship’s cancellation for only the fourth time in its 149-year history. But golf also served as a model of cooperation and ingenuity. Prime example: The Ryder Cup was postponed to 2021 (as was Olympic golf), and the PGA Tour agreed to push back the Presidents Cup to 2022, thus permanently altering the rotation of the men’s biennial events as well as the women’s Solheim Cup. Also, the PGA Tour and European Tour came together late in the year to announce an unprecedented strategic alliance. The three other majors were shuffled around—the most jarring being the Masters’ move from April to a display of fall colours, not flowers, in November. And while the PGA Tour lost 11 events due to the pandemic, it didn’t cut the prize money and put together a COVID-19 protocol plan that proved to be one of the most successful in all of sports. The effects of the virus will be felt well into 2021, particularly with few or no fans in attendance in the early part of the schedule—a development that will further drain the coffers of tournaments around the country. Still, as the calendar turns, there is optimism, considering what already has been accomplished in the most trying of times. “I’m hopeful we’re going to get through next year,” Monahan said at the Tour Championship in September. “We’re going to get back to normal fast, and that puts us in a position where we continue on the normal growth pattern that we’re projected to be on this year, that unfortunately, we were not able to be on because of the events associated with COVID.” —Tod Leonard

BONUS READ: Where do preparations stand for the men’s majors and the Ryder Cup for 2021?

• • •

No. 4: DUSTIN JOHNSON

Ben Walton

Peculiar as it seems in hindsight, Dustin Johnson was trending towards being somewhat of an afterthought halfway through 2020. Heading into the third tournament of the PGA Tour’s restart, the Travelers Championship, Johnson owned a lone top 10 in a full-field tour stop over the past year, falling out of the top five in the World Rankings for the first time since 2016. To be fair, Johnson underwent arthroscopic knee surgery at the end of 2019 and showed hints of his former self in the early spring. And yet, as the sport has callously shown, there’s always the possibility of not returning from the wilderness. As we now know, Johnson not only returned, he asserted himself, unequivocally, as the game’s sheriff. The revival started in Connecticut, riding a hot Saturday into contention at TPC River Highlands and staying cool down the stretch for his first win in 16 months. He finished runner-up in August’s PGA Championship, won The Northern Trust by a dominant 11 strokes, could have won the BMW Championship if not for a miraculous Jon Rahm putt in sudden death and captured his first FedEx Cup with a steady performance at East Lake. Even a bout with COVID couldn’t slow down DJ, who returned from quarantine with a runner-up at the Houston Open in his first outing back. Alas, in spite of these accomplishments, Johnson’s career continued to be defined for what it lacked. Specifically, more major titles to accompany his 2016 U.S. Open victory. He couldn’t close out his 54-hole lead at the PGA, the fourth time he had failed to do so at a major, and after entering September’s U.S. Open as an overwhelming favourite, he was never in contention at Winged Foot, his T-6 finish of the backdoor variety. The knock on Johnson, some asserted, was he could not rise to the moment, that the poise that worked so well at rank-and-file events needed giddy-up at the four championships that matter most. Those knocks were forever addressed in November. Johnson’s 65-70-65 Masters start translated into a four-shot lead heading into the final day at Augusta National, and though his 54-hole advantage was nearly wiped away after five holes, Johnson answered when it mattered most. He kept the mistakes at bay, didn’t flinch in tight spots and attacked when given the go-ahead in route to a tournament-record 20-under score to lap the field by five. In resounding fashion, with new wardrobe in tow, Johnson rewrote his legacy in 2020. And rather than wonder what might have been, the only question on Johnson is what he’ll do next. —Joel Beall

RELATED: The highs and lows of Dustin Johnson’s spectacular 2020

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No. 5: A NOVEMBER MASTERS

JD Cuban

If the first wave of tournament cancellations in pro golf due to the surging coronavirus stunned golf fans in March, the news from Georgia shortly thereafter landed like a punch to the stomach. A month before the 84th Masters was to be played, officials announced it was being postponed. Even Augusta National couldn’t escape the wrath of COVID-19. On what would have been Monday of Masters week, there was more news: Golf’s governing bodies released a joint statement outlining an unprecedented plan: a reshuffling of virtually every golf tournament of note, including a Masters in … gasp … November.  November?!? What will the course be like? (Softer). The weather? (Virtually the same). Will there be fans? (Nope). How would Augusta handle exemptions? (Sorry, Daniel Berger). What played out was a tradition unlike any other, unlike any other. Instead of marking the unofficial beginning of the golf season, the Masters marked the end. Instead of back-nine roars echoing through the pines and accompanying fist pumps, there were smatterings of applause and polite waves. Instead of fiery greens that force you to hit the ball high, there were soft putting surfaces that punished you for having too much spin. What resulted was a week of low scoring that broke plenty of records—most notably, the lowest cut in tournament history (even-par 144) and the lowest winning 72-hole score, courtesy of Dustin Johnson’s 20-under 268. Of course, there were other stories, too. There was Bryson saying Augusta was a par 67 for him, only to lose a ball in fantastic fashion and never factor on the weekend. There was Tiger’s title defense, which got off to a hot start then crashed and burned with a career-worst 10. And there was Johnson’s runaway win, a performance that culminated a three-month stretch of dominant golf with a five-shot win that served as a much overdue victory lap for one of the best players of his generation. Still, maybe the most important legacy of the event was that it was played at all, much in the same way the PGA of America and USGA pulled off the PGA Championship and U.S. Open in their altered time slots. Long story short, Augusta National made the most of a bad situation, which is all anyone could have asked for in 2020. —Daniel Rapaport

RELATED: The major that never happened—The story behind the cancellation of the Open Championship

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No. 6: DISTANCE DEBATE

Gregory Shamus

The past year put a lot of things on hold, but the debate over distance in golf continued almost non-stop. In February, the USGA and R&A released their much-anticipated Distance Insights Report. The lengthy document, crafted after two years of research, offered this ominous language in the Conclusions section: “Golf will best thrive over the next decades and beyond if this continuing cycle of ever-increasing hitting distances and golf course lengths is brought to an end.” Then COVID-19 hit and further “research topics” the governing bodies intended to explore were delayed until March 2021. Still, a lot happened to fuel the debate, Exhibit A: Bryson DeChambeau. It wasn’t just his 400-yard drives but the discussion surrounding them. Colin Montgomerie got so freaked out by what DeChambeau was doing at the tour’s re-start at Colonial he stated he was in favour of a tournament ball for professionals that went 80 to 85 percent of the current ball. That’s a position long held by Jack Nicklaus, who spoke up again when the tour visited his Muirfield Village in July, telling Golf Channel, “The USGA and the R&A have got to wake up sooner or later. Guys, stop studying it and do something!” Doing something, however, comes with potential risks. DeChambeau off the tee became must-see TV, particularly after his once-questioned methods resulted in a six-stroke U.S. Open victory. Others, such as Rory McIlroy, started pondering swinging for the fences, posting ball-speed and carry-distance numbers on social media. Then there was Collin Morikawa’s memorable driving of the green to within seven feet on the par-4 16th hole at TPC Harding Park in the final round of the PGA Championship. Distance sells, and there appears to be no reason for the PGA Tour to want less of it. The governing bodies, however, seem to remain steadfast that something must be done. On Dec. 4, the USGA sent a release regarding the association’s commitment to charting a sustainable future for golf courses in collaboration with other stakeholders in the game. Included was language that could be construed as not only pro-rollback for everyone, not just the professionals. “As owners feel the pressure to lengthen courses, they face significant capital expenditures and larger areas to maintain, which have contributed to an average increase of 6.7 percent in maintenance costs.” The takeaway? The rhetoric will continue and don’t expect this nearly 20-year debate to end anytime soon. Stay tuned. —E. Michael Johnson

BONUS READ: Professional golf witnessed first-hand the power of evolution in 2020

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No. 7: GOLF VOICES FOR SOCIAL CHANGE

Golf is often measured in its reaction to social matters, and from afar it may seem that the game was muted in its response to the protests of racial injustice across America in 2020. Yet golf was far from silent. Long Drive champ Maurice Allen penned a moving letter about being Black in a mostly white sport. “Golf is supposed to be an accountable sport. You hit a bad shot, that’s on you. You break a rule, you call it on yourself. Stop making excuses or guessing someone’s intention,” Allen wrote. “Start using that same accountability you apply to golf to racism, sexism and injustice.” Kirk Triplett, who is a white man with a Black son, became the first player to brandish the Black Lives Matter logo on a PGA Tour circuit. “Look, golfers are great with charity, and on the whole are socially conscious,” Triplett told Golf Digest. “But the game never crosses the line into some of the more uncomfortable stuff. Well, this is an uncomfortable time, and we can’t ignore it.” Cameron Champ, one of just four players with Black heritage on tour, followed with his support of BLM and backed up his actions by establishing scholarships at Prairie View, a HBCU in Texas. Augusta National named Lee Elder an Honorary Starter at the 2021 Masters, and announced it will fund golf programs at nearby Paine College. The latest rendition of The Match played the day after Thanksgiving had the proceeds—more than $5 million—also go to historically black colleges and universities. And then there is Harold Varner III. Days before the PGA Tour’s restart at Colonial, Varner spoke of his experiences with inequality. The message was eloquent and passionate, offered perspective and understanding. Then the most remarkable thing happened. Varner, at a juncture where the lines of sport and society are blurred, contended at Colonial. He ultimately did not win the event; didn’t even finish top 10. But with his words and resolve, with a performance that can only be measured against the pain and uncertainty and fear we all face, Varner showed us the best that golf can be. —Joel Beall

RELATED: Maurice Allen—Being Black in a white sport

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No. 8: PHIL MICKELSON

It’s been one of pro golf’s favourite parlour games for years: What will Phil do next? Trying to anticipate the mercurial Phil Mickelson’s next move is a bit like playing charades blindfolded, and there was at least the usual number of questions surrounding Lefty in 2020—most notably because he celebrated his 50th birthday in June. That opened up the possibility of Mickelson venturing onto the PGA Tour Champions for the first time. Phil was coy about it the season’s outset, saying he wanted to focus on the regular tour. But after a pretty lacklustre effort before and after the COVID-19 shutdown (the only highlight was a solo third at his personal playground, Pebble Beach), Mickelson decided the time was right in late August for his senior bow. And boy was it a show. In the Charles Schwab Series at Ozarks National, Phil drained 11 birdies and shot 61 in the first round and then cruised to a wire-to-wire victory at 22 under for 54 holes. Tiger Woods’ reaction? “There’s no reason he can’t win every time he plays out there.” To prove that plausible, Mickelson played on the Champions again in mid-October in the Dominion Energy Charity Classic—and won again. Feasting on wide fairways and benign pin placements, Lefty is 2-for-2. Now about still competing with the youngsters … that’s becoming a bit more daunting. Mickelson has posted only two top 10s in his last 21 starts on the PGA Tour. Probably more disappointing was never being a factor in trying to pad his resume of five major victories. In 2020, Phil tied for 71st in the PGA Championship, started the U.S. Open with a 79 to miss the cut, and had no chance on Sunday in the Masters after a third-round 79. Boasting that his swing speed is better than ever, any power gain has been erased by erratic play in virtually every asset. For the 2019-’20 season, Mickelson was better than 75th in only one of the tour’s important strokes-gained categories (around the green). He was poor with his irons (129th, strokes gained/approach) and putter (124th, strokes gained/putting). He’s going to have to get a lot better to contend very often on the big tour. So, what will Phil do now? Here’s betting he beats up more on the graybeards and picks his spots with the kids. —Tod Leonard

RELATED: Our 50 favourite ‘Phil being Phil’ moments

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No. 9: TIGER WOODS

Patrick Smith

That Tiger Woods occupies real estate on this list is a testament to his star power, because he did really very little of note on the golf course in 2020. He played in just nine tournaments and managed one finish better than T-37. He was not a factor in any of the three majors, and he putted miserably. And yet he still commands the attention of the entire golf world in a way no one else can. He began the year ranked No. 6 in the World Rankings and now sits at No. 38, but his status as the game’s biggest star has not diminished. And it’s still not close. As for his golf, as we mentioned, it was a year to forget. He started 2020 well enough, with a T-9 at Torrey Pines. That would prove to be his only top 10. And yet he still did stuff, and people still cared. In no particular order: He sent the golf world into a panic when he pulled out of the Players Championship with a sore back; He, Phil Mickelson, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady produced a highly entertaining trash-talk fest (The Match 2) during the height of the sport-less wasteland; all eyes turned to him to make a statement on the killing of George Floyd, which he did; he opened his first public course design, Payne’s Valley, with another well-received exhibition in Missouri; he gave fans an early Christmas present by announcing he’d play in the PNC Championship this week with his son; and he made a 10 on Sunday at the Masters, the worst score of his professional career. It was, however, the response to that 10 that warrants optimism for 2021. Directly after failing as he never has before, Woods did something he’s also never done before: birdie five of his final six holes at Augusta National. It was a reminder of Woods’ fighting spirit, of his total and complete unwillingness to pack it in. Sure, this was a down year on the golf course. But he’s trudged through way worse and still managed to climb back to the mountaintop. What lies ahead in 2021 is anyone’s guess, but one thing is for certain: We’ll be watching his every move. —Daniel Rapaport

BONUS READ: What’s 2021 look like for Tiger?

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No. 10: SOPHIA POPOV

Richard Heathcote/R&A

There isn’t a story from 2020 that more exemplifies why we love sports than Sophia Popov’s win at the AIG Women’s British Open. A player no one had ever heard of, who wasn’t a member of the LPGA Tour, who was on the cusp of quitting the game a year ago, who struggled with weight loss and other complications as she battled Lyme disease for years, plays her way to a two-shot win over the best players in the world. It’s hard not to root for that story every time. Popov wasn’t even supposed to be in the field at Royal Troon. The 27-year-old had been bouncing around tours since graduating from USC in 2014. She lost her LPGA Tour card in 2019 and was going to be spending 2020 on the Symetra Tour—likely 2021, too, once the pandemic hit, limiting the number of spots Symetra Tour graduates would get on the LPGA Tour for 2021. But LPGA Tour players not wanting to travel during the pandemic opened up some extra spots in the early tournaments when play resumed. Popov caddied in the first event back and then got a start the next week at the Marathon LPGA Classic. She took full advantage, finishing T-9. It was enough to get her into the field at Royal Troon. With her boyfriend on the bag, she started out with a 70, good enough for T-2. At that point, she was just a name near the lead no one had really heard of, the kind of player who has one good round in a major and then falls away. But Popov didn’t go away. She shot 72 on Friday, staying in the T-2 position. A 67 on Saturday gave her a three-shot lead. She remained unflappable on Sunday, winning by two to become the first German woman to win a major championship. She also earned full LPGA Tour status. No more Symetra Tour events, no more considering giving up all together. Popov had finally, officially arrived. —Keely Levins

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No. 11: PREMIER GOLF LEAGUE

Ross Kinnaird

The idea of a world golf circuit to combat the PGA Tour is far from new. Yet few proposed competitors have generated as much interest and curiosity as the Premier Golf League. Tracking its roots to 2014, the PGL’s blueprint., revealed publicly in January, is a league with 48 players divided into 12 teams—which players owning a share of said teams—competing in 18 no-cut, 54-hole events. It boasts shotgun starts (so an entire round could be compacted into a five-hour broadcast) and a team-only finale, with 10 of the tournaments set for the United States. And money. Lots of money—$240 million in prizes, to be exact. A sum the PGL hopes will pry the sport’s superstars to its pastures. However, most of the game’s marquee, in-their-prime attractions (including Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka) have thus far distanced themselves from the PGL, with the strongest rebuke coming from McIlroy, who said he “didn’t really like where the money was coming from,” a nod to the PGL’s alleged Saudi backers. Some big names, though, sounded curious. Phil Mickelson played with PGL financers in January and said the concept was “intriguing.” The recent alliance between the PGA and European Tours added another obstacle for the fledgeling league, as the PGL had sought a partnership with the Old World circuit. Despite an inauspicious rollout, the PGL remains, as Mickelson said, an intriguing—and in the eyes of the PGA and European Tours, formidable—concept, one fan could be hearing more about in the coming months. —Joel Beall

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No. 12: COLLIN MORIKAWA

San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images

In football, pundits often debate whether a quarterback is ready to make “the leap”—loosely defined as the progression from promising up-and-comer to bona fide franchise player. Ideally it happens in the QB’s second year in the league, after he’s had one full season and offseason under his belt. Extrapolated to golf, Collin Morikawa followed the timeline perfectly. The former world No. 1 amateur who graduated from Cal-Berkeley in May 2019 hit the ground running, going T-2/T-4/WIN in his fourth, fifth and sixth starts as a professional. That firmly established him as one of golf’s most promising young players, as did making 22 straight cuts to start his career (three shy of Tiger Woods’ record). That put Morikawa at 44th in the World Ranking when the COVID-19 pandemic halted play in March. Come June, however, when the season resumed—13 months after he turned pro—Morikawa kicked it into an entirely different gear. A shoved three-footer saw him lose in a playoff in the first event back, the Charles Schwab Challenge, and the nightmare nearly repeated itself three starts later at the Workday Charity Open at Muirfield Village. But that par putt on the 72nd hole lipped in, rather than out, and he beat Justin Thomas in one of the more entertaining mano-y-manos you’ll ever see: Thomas holed a 50-footer for birdie on the first extra hole before Morikawa punched back with a 24-footer of his own, then won it with a par on the next. The true breakthrough came a month later at TPC Harding Park, a short cruise across the Bay from his college stomping grounds. On a typically gray San Francisco Sunday afternoon, Morikawa emerged from a seven-deep pack of contenders at the PGA Championship with a chip-in for birdie on 14 and an eagle for the ages on the par-4 16th, where his tee shot finished seven feet from the cup and he finally sunk an important putt right in the heart. Two closing pars gave him the Wanamaker—and gave golf its newest superstar. —Daniel Rapaport

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No. 13: THE PGA TOUR CHAMPIONS

Kevin C. Cox

What began as a year focused largely on PGA Tour Champions perennial headliner Bernhard Langer and his assault on Hale Irwin’s record 45 career senior victories quickly made way to a new and “younger” storyline: the tour’s impressive 2020 rookie class. Five golfers playing in their first year on the senior circuit won eight titles in the 14 events contested during the COVID-interrupted year. The headliners were names familiar to golf fans. Ernie Els, in just his third senior start took the title at the Hoag Classic in March, the first of two wins that the four-time major winner would collect. As Jim Furyk turned 50 in May, the tour was still in its COVID-19 hiatus, but when play resumed at the Ally Challenge in July, the 2003 U.S. Open champ won in his senior debut. He also won his next start, the PURE Insurance Championship at Pebble Beach. Meanwhile, Phil Mickelson, who sounded hesitant to join the seniors at first, chose to play the Charles Schwab Series in his debut in July, opened with a 61 and cruised to a four-stroke win. Two months later, he entered the Dominion Energy Charity Classic and won it, too. Impressively, the two other rookie winners, Brett Quigley and Shane Bertsch, also were quick senior studies, each winning in just their second career starts. Suffice it to say, the fivesome helped bring a new energy to the 50-and-older circuit, as did the emergence of former major winner Darren Clarke (who claimed his first senior title in the fall) and the continued success of the coolest senior around, Miguel Angel Jimenez. And, of course, there was Langer, who at 63 grabbed his 41st PGA Tour Champions win, and finished in the top 10 in 12 of 15 starts. —John Strege

RELATED: How the PGA Tour Champions became competitive again

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No. 14: RORY MCILROY

Tom Pennington

“A game of two halves” may be one of soccer’s hoariest cliches, but it is an apt description of Rory McIlroy’s play during the 2019-’20 season and beyond. Between October 2019 and March 2020, the now 31-year-old Northern Irishman won once (WGC-HSBC Champions) and was never out of the top five in seven consecutive PGA Tour appearances. But when the tour returned after the COVID-19 lockdown in June, that high level of consistency was gone. In his next nine starts, McIlroy’s T-8 finish at the season-ending Tour Championship was his only top 10 and his distinction as World No. 1 was no more. Meanwhile, the 2020-’21 season, so far, ranks somewhere between those two extremes. Four appearances contained a T-8 at the U.S. Open and a T-5 at the Masters. Good obviously, but not even McIlroy’s biggest fan would claim he was ever in serious contention to win either. So what to make of it all? In a recent interview, McIlroy—who also became a new father to daughter Poppy, born Aug. 31—gave himself a “C” grade for his play. “I think any year you don’t win a tournament is a disappointment, and that’s why this year is disappointing,” McIlroy said, acknowledging once more his struggle getting comfortable with fanless tournaments. “It maybe took me longer to adjust to it than some other people. Every time I went out there for the first few weeks it felt like a practice round, like it didn’t matter.” Still, the world of golf is trending upward. A virus vaccine is reportedly on the way, and the return of crowds could follow. If the ever-inspirational McIlroy follows that same direction, it would hardly be a surprise to see a fifth major victory—and the first since 2014—added to his resume in 2021. Then again, maybe he won’t do anything of the sort. As 2020 has illustrated, with Rory you never quite know anything for certain. —John Huggan

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No. 15: CHARITY GOLF EVENTS

Mike Ehrmann

Hit-n-giggle events have historically been specks of dust in the golf galaxy. They featured big names and bigger money but the stakes never matter, if they were even remembered to begin with. Their existence was derided as the sport’s “silly season.” But in 2020, these matches moved from the game’s fringes to centre stage. Rather than line the pockets of the rich, a series of high-profile exhibitions generated millions for charities and food banks and HBCUs in a time when every dollar counts. And if these events were just charity generators, that would be well and good. Yet they were entertaining, all in their own rights. Through the TaylorMade Driving Relief charity event fans got their first glimpse of the uber-private Seminole Golf Club. Charles Barkley showed his infamous swing had drastically improved during a Thanksgiving showdown with Peyton Manning, Steph Curry and Phil Mickelson. Speaking of Mickelson … well, he did a bunch of Phil Mickelson things in both two iterations of “The Match.” Fans got to watch him stomp around with Tiger Woods, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning (above) at Woods’ home course, and the PGA Tour’s weekly nine-hole Wednesday games showed us the personalities of players not normally given the spotlight. And while the stakes remained low, they sure felt high. A sentiment best encapsulated by Brady at “The Match II” at Medalist. The Buccaneers quarterback was exposed as a sandbagger, received an ungodly amount of schadenfreude from his competitors and broadcast and social media, and he ripped his pants in the one nanosecond where things weren’t going wrong. Yet his hole-out for eagle the first “Oh-My-Did-You-See-That?!?!!” sports moment since the world shut down in March. Yes, it was a golf exhibition. In the best possible connotation. —Joel Beall

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No. 16: BROOKS KOEPKA

Ezra Shaw

There’s a bluntness to the way Brooks Koepka plays golf, or at least to the force that he delivers to a golf ball. His words aren’t much different either, so when asked recently to sum up his year, he cut right to it: “I don’t know if I could say that without getting fined. Pretty bad.” Such is the standard for a player who won four majors in just less than two years and began 2020 as the No. 1 player in the world only to go winless and dip to 12th, his lowest ranking since 2017. On one hand, it was a disjointed season—pun intended—as the 30-year-old missed two months, including the U.S. Open in September, because of lingering knee and hip issues that also sidelined him for three months in 2019. On the other, his ego wrote some checks his game couldn’t cash, most notably in August at the PGA Championship, where he entered the final round at Harding Park tied for second just two strokes off the lead of Dustin Johnson. Koepka proceeded to offer a dismissive assessment of Johnson and the other contenders, then promptly imploded with a Sunday 74 to tumble to a T-29. He also missed more cuts in 2020 (five) than he had in the previous two years combined (three), had just four top 10s (the fewest in a calendar year of his career) and seemed at times to have trouble adjusting to the lack of buzz without fans in attendance because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then there was his continued trolling of Bryson DeChambeau over everything from ants, to slow play, to more serious insinuations over DeChambeau’s newfound bulk. On the bright side, there was a T-7 at the Masters. On the brighter side, 2020 is in the rear-view mirror. —Brian Wacker

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No. 17: DANIELLE KANG

Mike Comer

When the LPGA Tour returned on July 31 after having not competed since February due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was no way of knowing how players’ games would come out of the long hiatus. Danielle Kang, however, made the state of her game immediately clear when she won the first two events, and emphatically put her stamp on the 2020 season. After taking the title at the LPGA Drive On Championship at Inverness Club by one shot over Celine Boutier, Kang gave credit to her coach, Butch Harmon, saying they spent the time off back in Las Vegas working on her 3-wood and wedge game. “Butch was the mastermind behind it,” Kang said. “He knew exactly what I needed to accomplish and work on, and I had the time.” Another one-shot win the next week, this time over Lydia Ko at the Marathon LPGA Classic, made it five career victories and bragging rights over her boyfriend, PGA Tour pro Maverick McNealy. Kang remained one of the tour’s top guns through the rest of the year, finishing top 12 in four other starts and moving up to fourth in the Rolex Women’s Rankings. Always a fiery competitor—she picked up the game at age 12 and 18 months later had qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open—Kang is clearing living up to her potential. With the season’s two biggest events still to come—this week’s U.S. Women’s Open and next week’s CME Group Tour Championship—the 28-year-old California native has the chance to become the first American since Stacy Lewis in 2014 to win LPGA player-of-the-year honours.—Keely Levins

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No. 18: GOLF & GAMBLING

Hispanolistic

Once a back-room taboo topic, the legalization of sports betting continues to transform how we watch our favourite games, golf included. In 2020, golf broadcasts—notably the PGA Tour’s live digital streams and Golf Channel’s coverage—began showing and discussing odds. Made-for-TV exhibitions such as The Match 2 and The Match 3, the TaylorMade Driving Relief Skins Game and the Payne’s Valley Cup at Big Cedar Lodge all included heavy integrations with major sports-betting companies. It might’ve been a bit bizarre for some to hear announcers talking about who to bet on during a telecast, but given how momentum is shifting, it’s a sign of things to come. Consider that when the PGA Tour returned to action in June at the Charles Schwab Challenge, that first tournament was the most-bet tour event in DraftKings history. So what’s next? Prepare to see the PGA Tour continue to embrace the industry, including its partnership with IMG Arena, which will release a live-betting product in the 19 states where legal sports betting is available (with more states to come). The tour’s partnerships with most of the major betting operators will allow it to try almost anything it wants—notably develop new products and TV integrations to continue to engage their audience. There is a massive shift in behaviour—and a way to encourage non-golfers but fantasy golf players or bettors to be watching golf. It might not be the method many envisioned when they talked about growing the game decades ago, but it’s already happening. —Stephen Hennessey

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No. 19: WILL ZALATORIS

Hector Vivas

What if we told you the most consistent men’s golfer in the world didn’t earn status on the PGA Tour in 2020 until November? Such was the case with Will Zalatoris, a former All-American at Wake Forest, who picked the wrong year to light up the Korn Ferry Tour. A record stretch of 11 consecutive top-20 finishes on the developmental circuit, including a first pro win at the TPC Colorado Championship in July, was enough to easily finish first on the money list. But thanks to COVID-19, Korn Ferry Tour players will have to wait until the end of the 2021 season to earn PGA Tour cards. The good news for Zalatoris? The Plano, Texas, native kept his hot play going in the limited opportunities he got in the bigs, most notably a T-6 at the U.S. Open. The 24-year-old’s form was so strong by the time fall came around he was even made the betting favourite at the PGA Tour’s Bermuda Championship. Zalatoris didn’t win that week, but a T-16 was enough to earn Special Temporary Member status on the PGA Tour. In other words, we’re betting you hear a lot more about him in 2021. —Alex Myers

BONUS READ: The best things for golfers to come out of the pandemic

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No. 20: PUSH CARTS

Richard Heathcote/R&A

Golf not only became the “it” participation sport during COVID-19, but walking the course came back in a big way. With golf carts a non-starter in most parts of the country during the early months of the pandemic, golfers who loathed the thought of lugging their bag looked to push carts as a viable alternative. Even pro golfers got into the act; LPGA up-and-comer Lindsey Weaver used one when the tour resumed play in lieu of a local caddie, including at the AIG Women’s British Open at Troon. It all resulted in a sales explosion in the category, a scarcity of supply and, eventually, price gouging on the secondary market with some non-motorized pushcarts going for close to $1,000 on some auction sites. Sun Mountain, a leading producer of push carts, ramped up production 250 percent—and still couldn’t keep up with demand, its pre-sales pushing availability out some three months during the summer. Results were predictably strong at retail as well. Ken Morton Jr., VP of retail & marketing at the Haggin Oaks golf facility in Sacramento, Calif., said the push-cart boom remains strong, with sales in August-September more than double the norm. “And that’s virtual without any inventory,” Morton said. “Everything we get in from the manufacturers is gone within a day or two of it arriving. At one point, we had a waitlist nearly 100 customers long.” Although 2021 will see demand for push carts slow somewhat, it likely will still far exceed pre-COVID levels. Golfers have not only grown used to hoofing it, but many have found they prefer the walk—as long as the bag stays off the shoulder. —E. Michael Johnson

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No. 21: NICK WATNEY

Gregory Shamus

When the PGA Tour resumed its season in June with the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing, there were those who figured it wasn’t a matter of if a player would test positive for coronavirus but when. Unlike the NBA, which locked down its league in Orlando, the tour would be playing tournaments at courses around the country, with players, caddies and officials going in and out of “the bubble” each week. And while 40-plus pages worth of safety protocols were in place, they would only go so far. So when Nick Watney tested positive during the second tournament back, the RBC Heritage on Hilton Head Island, the surprise wasn’t so much that it happened but who it happened to first. The 39-year-old tour veteran with a wife and two kids had the reputation of being a rule follower. “At the time it was extremely surreal because I felt like I had followed all the suggested protocols,” Watney told Golf Digest last week. Thankfully, the five-time tour winner experienced only mild symptoms and returned to play three weeks later. Unfortunately, the rest of 2020 was a struggle, with eight missed cuts in his 10 remaining starts. The tour, meanwhile, played on, confident its plan could limit exposure and keep other players safe. And, indeed, it did. While there were more positive tests among players, compared to other sports (notably the NFL and college football), the numbers were relatively low: 15 in total over a span of 17 tournaments and thousands of tests administered. Watney’s place in history remains, but thankfully it isn’t all that infamous. —Brian Wacker

BONUS READ: The first PGA Tour pro to test positive for COVID-19 reflects on his surreal experience

• • •

No. 22: SHEEP RANCH

Dom Furore

Like the age-old gifting question, What do you get the person who already has everything?, it’s difficult to envision what could possibly make Bandon Dunes better. The golf world received the answer this year: Sheep Ranch, which opened in June and earned Golf Digest’s Best New Course honours for 2020. The trick to enhancing a golf destination that seems to offer everything—including four courses currently ranked among Golf Digest’s America’s 100 Greatest Courses—is to make any new addition distinct. Sheep Ranch accomplishes that by playing across a property that’s unlike anything else on site—a broad, open plain of seaside bluffs to the north of Old Macdonald. Where Bandon’s other courses dip in and out of sandy dunes and forests, Sheep Ranch fans across a mostly naked and ferociously windswept expanse that used to be home to a rustic and secretive 13-green course of the same name. The task for architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw was to find a way to assemble, in limited space, 18 holes that were broad enough to handle balls that would be blowing in all directions. In doing this they were also able to locate a remarkable nine greens along a majestic run of Pacific Ocean bluffs. Sheep Ranch is a gorgeous, bouncy course with its own look and playing characteristics, giving guests a different kind of golf experience and travellers yet another compelling reason to make the trek to southwest Oregon. —Derek Duncan

• • •

No. 23: PAUL AZINGER

Tasos Katopodis

It’s hard to believe now, but in a pre-COVID world the most-heated debate—at least, in the golf world—stemmed from Zinger’s zinger at Tommy Fleetwood during the final round of the Honda Classic in March. For a moment, the NBC commentator sounded more like an American Ryder Cup captain trying to fire up his squad when he said, “These guys know, you can win all you want on that European Tour or in the international game and all that,” Azinger said, “but you have to win on the PGA Tour.” More than what Azinger said, though, was how he said it. Many European players from Ian Poulter to Lee Westwood rightfully found the words condescending, particularly the line, “that European Tour.” To be fair to Azinger, though, even Fleetwood acknowledged the importance of winning in America. And whether it was the pressure of doing so or not, his chances of doing so disappeared when his second shot found the water on the par-5 18th at PGA National. In any event, Fleetwood enters 2021 still in search of a win on U.S. soil, and Azinger remains in the 18th tower for NBC. At the very least, like his predecessor Johnny Miller, Azinger seems to get golf fans—and golfers—talking. —Alex Myers

• • •

No. 24: HOODIES

Ross Kinnaird

Like seemingly every controversy in golf, the heated debate that centred around the acceptability of wearing hooded sweatshirts—aka Hoodies—during a golf tournament was manufactured on social media. While well-known players like Tony Finau, Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy had worn them in competition before, HoodieGate didn’t really “explode” until Tyrrell Hatton won the European Tour’s BMW PGA Championship in September wearing one. And by “explode,” we mean a handful of folks with 26 Twitter followers were upset with Hatton’s Bill Belichick-ian look at Wentworth. Nevertheless, the debate persisted, becoming less of a Hoodie-specific controversy and more of a diatribe on proper golf attire in general. One English golf club doubled down on its no-hoodie rule after Hatton’s victory. Ewan Porter, a former tour pro, told the story of being kicked out of an Australia golf club for wearing black socks. These two situations had many up in arms over golf’s outdated “dress code,” the argument being that if we want to grow the game, forcing people to abide by archaic rules ain’t the way to go. One thing is clear: There is still a divide regarding golf’s dress-code debates, be it on social media or behind the closed gates of an exclusive club. —Christopher Powers

• • •

No. 25: MIKE DAVIS

Scott Halleran

Mike Davis soon will break new ground as he segues into a career in golf course architecture with partner Tom Fazio II. Of course, many would argue—some saying for the better and, yes, more than a few for the worse—that Davis, 55, has been doing that for years during his tenure at the USGA, which will come to a close at the end of 2021. Davis said in September that he’ll be stepping down as CEO of the organization where he’s worked since 1990 and been in charge since 2011, leaving to pursue his first love, because, he said, “I’m closer to 60 than I am 50, and there was almost a sense that if I don’t do this, I’m going to regret it.” During his tenure, Davis oversaw, among many initiatives, the modernization of the Rules of Golf, the launch of the World Handicap System, the creation of the USGA Foundation, the debut of four new championships and plans for a second USGA headquarters in Pinehurst, N.C. He also, with mixed results, took the U.S. Open in a different direction with the selection of new courses like Chambers Bay and Erin Hills, and with the setup of old standbys like Winged Foot, Oakmont and Shinnecock Hills that featured graduated rough and multiple teeing grounds. Critics harped on tests that were either too easy (Erin Hills) or too tricked up (Shinnecock Hills) or simply not of true U.S. Open character (Chambers Bay). In the end, however, he put his stamp on the association, and though he said, “I hate the idea of leaving,” he nevertheless leaves as he served—on his own terms. —Dave Shedloski

RELATED: Who will replace Mike Davis? This is what the USGA is looking for

The post Newsmakers 2020: A superstar redefines his legacy appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Alex Myers
A lot of crazy things happened in golf during 2020, including, ironically, the fact that not much at all happened when a global pandemic broke out. But while Thanksgiving gatherings have been discouraged this year, the CDC said nothing about handing out pretend turkeys. So we should still be safe going forward with our annual Thanksgiving rundown of the year’s biggest turkeys, recalling the moments from 2020 that our culprits would probably rather forget.

Paul Azinger

In a pre-pandemic world, Zinger’s zinger at Tommy Fleetwood and the European Tour during the final round at the Honda Classic was all the rage. In case you don’t remember what he said—we don’t blame you, because again, there’s been a LOT going on since—it was basically, “Yeah, yeah, he’s won a few times in Europe, but he hasn’t proven he can win on the PGA Tour.” Was there some truth to what the NBC analyst said? Sure. Even Fleetwood himself is on the record saying the PGA Tour is “another level,” and he did himself no favors when he found the water on the 72nd hole and ended his chances of grabbing that first PGA Tour win. But Azinger’s condescending tone rubbed people the wrong way and went a bit too far. The world would mostly forget once COVID-19 became a much (much) more important topic of conversation, but we didn’t forget here!

Rickie Fowler
Nothing summed up Rickie Fowler’s disappointing year better than a missed tap-in at the PGA Championship. Hey, it happens to the best of them, but a six-incher? To miss the cut at a major by one shot? Ouch. And ouch for anyone who had him on their DFS roster that week …

Siiiiicccckkkkk @NoLayingUp @TronCarterNLU @BigRandyNLU @DJPie pic.twitter.com/GlmhqRhzNG

— Matthew Lawless (@Lawless2Lawless) August 7, 2020

Bryson DeChambeau

Jamie Squire

To be clear, Bryson had a fantastic 2020. He firmly established himself as one of the world’s longest and best players, won his first major and replaced Tiger/Phil as the most-talked-about golfer on the planet. But that last part wasn’t always good. Whether it was scolding people around him on the course (“sound travels”), getting into bizarre rules arguments (fire ants!) or making statements than came back to bite him (“This plays like a par 67 for me”), there were plenty of turkey-ish moments. So eat up, big guy. Or, drink up. Bryson will probably be guzzling turkey smoothies on T-Day.

Honda Classic first tee announcer
This guy had one job and yet he made three mistakes during Luke Donald’s intro. First, mispronouncing Donald’s hometown in England. Fine. Then, saying Donald had won the tournament in 2016 instead of 2006. A little worse, but still, we’d let it slide. But then he announced Donald as “Luke McDonald.” Not acceptable! The man is a former World No. 1! And with two first names, he has one of the easiest names to remember! Turkey!

James Adducci
We hate to rub in the fact that someone lost money on a bet. A lot of money, in fact. But when you’re a high-profile gambler, you’ve got to take the bad with the good. Last year, Adducci was all the rage for his bold and brilliant $85,000 bet on Tiger Woods to win the 2019 Masters that netted him $1.2 MILLION. He made another bold bet this year, but it certainly wasn’t brilliant: $45,000 on Phil Mickelson to win the U.S. Open. This time, he was hoping for a $3 MILLION payday, but Mickelson missed the cut. By seven shots. Maybe Adducci should quit while he’s ahead. At least, we think/hope he’s still ahead …

Danny Lee
Look, Winged Foot’s greens are notoriously difficult, but a six-putt is a bit much. Especially when recovered footage showed Lee slapping the ball around No. 18 during the third round of the U.S. Open like he was playing polo. See for yourself:

Footage of the Danny Lee six putt pic.twitter.com/hElgBlWzIj

— The Fried Egg (@the_fried_egg) September 20, 2020

Shortly after this meltdown, Lee withdrew from the tournament, citing a wrist injury. Perhaps he really did hurt his wrist with those club slams because he was still in line to make a decent check. In any event, Lee would eventually apologize for his actions—but that doesn’t keep him from earning a turkey.

This guy
We don’t know his name, and that’s better for him—because this is just, wow:

My brother’s friends first shot at St Andrews is unforgettable pic.twitter.com/DsKHW3TizB

— Tom (@culley999) February 21, 2020

Sure, there are bound to be some first-tee jitters in front of a gallery at the world’s most historic golf course, but yikes, that’s rough.

Scott Piercy

Chris Keane

In the far more serious division, the four-time PGA Tour winner posted a homophobic meme on Instagram about former Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, and another referencing far-right conspiracy theorists QAnon. Despite issuing a quick apology, Piercy was dropped by all five of his sponsors, including Titleist, FootJoy, and J Lindberg. “Yeah [it has been tough week],” Piercy said after his opening round at the Players before the season was put on hold. “People got the wrong idea of me.”

Kevin Kisner
Golf fans got a different idea of Kisner as well thanks to an insensitive tweet. In response to former NBA player Rex Chapman tweeting about the hardships COVID-19 has caused his family, being upset over the country’s rising death total and expressing displeasure at President Trump’s handling of the pandemic, Kisner replied, “Guess they can’t follow the guidelines.” Like with Piercy, he quickly apologized, and called his comment reckless. But also like with Piercy, the damage was already done. OK, let’s get back to some sillier gaffes, shall we?

Matt Wallace
In a Phil Mickelson-like move, Matt Wallace had his caddie tend the pin on a 56-yard shot during the U.S. Open. Unlike Phil, though, Wallace proceeded to completely chunk the shot—embarrassing!

Classic. Matt Wallace has his caddie tend it from 56 yards out and then he chunks it. pic.twitter.com/WeRP3wvP6l

— Fantasy Golf Pod (@fantasygolfpod) September 17, 2020

Chunk. City. Not Matt’s finest moment. Although, given his history with caddies, it wasn’t his worst moment either.

Wearside Golf Club

Ross Kinnaird

The 2020 golf season will be remembered most for Dustin, Bryson and hoodies dominating headlines. The latter getting the most attention thanks to Tyrrell Hatton (above) winning the European Tour’s flagship event, the BMW PGA Championship, while wearing the comfy garment. But shortly after that victory, England’s Wearside Golf Club doubled down on its no hoodie policy.

Sunday : One of the world’s best golfers won a big tournament wearing a hoodie. Maybe golf will progress and trust people to dress themselves?

Tuesday : pic.twitter.com/5xpMX2qOtE

— The Club (@TheClub) October 13, 2020

And people wonder why golf gets a bad rap. While Wearside gets the brunt of our scolding on this topic, if you think it’s a big deal that someone is wearing a hoodie on a golf course in 2020, then you’re a turkey, too.

Man vs. Turkey
An actual turkey making it into this piece! You love to see it! Only, we’re giving the turkey award to the man and not this beautiful bird, who was just trying to defend his home turf:

This was a really weird year, huh?

The post Bryson DeChambeau, Paul Azinger and hoodie haters: Golf’s biggest turkeys from 2020 appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

There is probably no man on the planet who has a better perspective for this particular question, and the rankings you see below are mostly his, with an occasional (but rare) thumb-on-the-scale from me … and only in cases where we neglected to talk about a Championship or two. Aside from those anomalies, what you see below comes from Denney—I’m just the transcriber.

Let’s count it down from 15.

15. 1955, Doug Ford, Meadowbrook Country Club

This one is mostly about personal achievement. From 1916 until 1957, the PGA Championship was decided by match play, with stroke-play qualification rounds starting in 1924. In that time, only four men were both medalists (for winning the stroke-play rounds) and overall champions. They included Byron Nelson, Walter Hagen, Olin Dutra and Doug Ford in ’55. Of those, Ford was the only one who managed it in a field of 128 golfers, meaning he had to win a 36-hole qualifier and then prevail in six straight matches. He pulled it off, capping the incredible week with a 4-and-3 win over Cary Middlecoff in the final. As it happens, Denney was the last person to interview Ford before he passed in 2018 at age 95.

14. 1963, Jack Nicklaus, Dallas Athletic Club

Nobody has won more PGA Championships than Nicklaus and Walter Hagen (with five each), and this was Jack’s first. He won the long drive contest that week, hitting 341 yards with a persimmon-headed driver, and the gold money clip he won became his good luck charm starting that week. He was also exhausted, having just flown in from the Open Championship where he finished one-shot out of a playoff after bogeying his the last two holes. Somehow, with temperatures in the triple digits on Sunday in Texas, Nicklaus came from three strokes back to win. That made him just the fourth player to have won all three American majors, and he was only 23. Safe to say he had a good career ahead of him.

13. 1921, Walter Hagen, Inwood Country Club

Photo by E. Bacon

This was the first American-born player to win the PGA Championship run by the PGA of … AMERICA. We have to include this, right? Right?!? Anyway, Hagen is a legend, but the real story here is that in the final, he defeated a man named Johnny Golden from Tuxedo, N.Y. Tell me that’s a real person, and not a character from a Michael Scott improve scene.

12. 1945, Byron Nelson, Moraine Country Club

Photo by Bettmann

As Denney pointed out, this was the ninth victory of Nelson’s famous 11-victory streak in 1945, at a time when he was burning out to a great degree. This was the only major championship played that year because of World War II (bad luck for Nelson, right??), and in the championship match, he defeated Sam Byrd, who had played for the Yankees as a backup outfielder from 1929 to 1934 as a reserve to none other than Babe Ruth. Which makes him one of the few people who could say to Nelson, “I’ve lost to better men than you,” and have it be true. This was a different era, but there was still a ton of pressure on Nelson … imagine winning almost every tournament played that year, but losing the only major.

11. 1942, Sam Snead, Seaview Country Club

This was Snead’s last event before joining the U.S. Navy—he would report for duty the next day. As it happened, he met an army corporal named Jim Turnesa in the final, and Turnesa was no slouch, having upset Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson in the quarters and semis. Snead won on the 35th hole by chipping in from 60 feet for birdie, and Denney noted there’s a photo of both men signing war bonds from after the round. Snead said at the time, and later repeated in Denney’s hearing, that it was his most meaningful victory because like many other Americans at that time, he didn’t know what the war might bring. (He never went overseas, serving mostly in San Diego before earning a medical discharge in 1944.)

10. 1968, Julius Boros, Pecan Valley Golf Club

This course no longer exists, but Boros’ record does—52 years later, he’s still the oldest man to ever win a major. Boros was 48, and it didn’t come easy. Arnold Palmer, a shot behind him, hit a spectacular curving 3-wood on the 72nd hole to eight feet, but couldn’t make the birdie putt. Boros had to make par, and went up and down to seal the deal. Also, as a footnote, Boros’ choice of hat that Sunday (Amana Refrigeration) seems to have accidentally spawned the clothing logo craze we know and hate today.

9. 2001, David Toms, Atlanta Athletic Club

“The layup to remember.” This one flies under the radar because it came one year after a certain other entry we’ll see later on the list, but the ending was spectacular. Dueling with a then major-less Phil Mickelson all day (Phil holed a dramatic long chip on 15 before giving it right back with a bogey on 16), and leading by a single stroke on the 72nd hole, Toms put his tee shot in the rough. Rather than risk the water on the par-4 home hole (playing a tick over 500 yards that day), he laid up and prayed for his short game to save him. His wedge came to rest 12 feet from the hole, and when Phil missed his birdie putt, Toms had his moment. Start at the 11:50 mark here for the layup and all that came after:

Afterward, Denney was the one who escorted Toms from the green to the trailer, and Toms was on the phone with his young son, saying, “Did you see that one?”

8. 1986, Bob Tway, Inverness Club

The next two entries belong in the long litany of Greg Norman heartbreaks, and this one comes from the year when he became the first man to lead every single major after 54 holes in a single year … and won just one of them. In this case, he held a four-shot lead heading into Sunday and still held it after nine holes before going into a tailspin. But in typical Norman fashion, he got very unlucky too. That twist came on the 72nd hole, when Tway, in the worse position of the two and tied with Norman, holed-out improbably from a greenside bunker. Norman, on the fringe, missed his birdie putt, and it was another chance gone. Watch Tway’s shot, one of the most famous in major history:

That’s some good leaping!

7. 1993, Paul Azinger, Inverness Club

Paul Azinger claims his one and only major at Inverness Club in 1993. (Photo by David Cannon)

This one actually went in Denney’s top five, but I’m being a jerk and knocking it back a few spots … but only because Denney admits he’s a bit biased. It was the first PGA Championship he worked, and he watched as Azinger emerged from “the greatest assembly of contenders on a Saturday leader board,” a group that collectively boasted 23 majors. Just like Bob Tway, Azinger overcame Norman, though this time Norman was very good, with a final-round 69. That’s the thing about Norman—when he wasn’t booting a major, he was the victim of terrible luck. In this case, Azinger had to birdie four of the last seven holes just to make a playoff, and then Norman missed a four-foot par putt on the second sudden-death hole to lose it. With the loss, Norman earned a dubious distinction, becoming just the second golfer after Craig Wood to have lost each of the four majors in a playoff. The legacy with Azinger is happier—it was his only major, but it opened up the chance for him to become a Ryder Cup captain back when winning the PGA was seen as an unwritten prerequisite for the Americans. He got the job in 2008, and was brilliant, providing one of the few bright spots for the U.S. in the past 40 years.

6. 1961, Jerry Barber, Olympia Fields

Let’s put it this way: If the last three holes of Barber’s Sunday round happened today, social media would cease to exist—it would be too overwhelming for all the 1s and 0s to process. Here’s how Denney described what Barber, who stood all of 5’3”, pulled off starting on the 16th hole, to force a tie with Don January:

On the 16th, a 458-yard par 4, he hit a 4-wood to 20 feet and made the birdie. On 17, he topped his drive and watched it roll barely 100 yards. Another 4-wood brought him within 90 yards of the green, but his approach was mediocre, leaving him with a 40-foot putt for par. He nailed it. Then, needing a birdie on the 436-yard 18th, in near darkness, he hit a 3-iron approach 60 feet away…AND MADE THAT PUTT TOO.

Barber came back in the 18-hole playoff the next day and beat January by a stroke on the 18th by hitting a 3-iron from the sand to 18 feet. And if that wasn’t crazy enough, he also became the oldest major winner ever at age 45 … a record that wouldn’t stand for very long. (Lucky for January, he won a PGA in 1967, and thank God, because that is a brutal way to go down.)

5. 2009, Y.E. Yang, Hazeltine National

Y.E. Yang acknowledges the fans as he walks up the 18th hole during the final round of the 2009 PGA Championship at Hazeltine National, runner-up Tiger Woods trailing behind him. Yang was the first Asian-born golfer to win a men’s major. (Photo by Icon Sports Wire)

It seems almost unfair to say this, but Yang’s win is more exciting after the fact than it was at the time. I was never the No. 1 Tiger homer, but I remember that Sunday at Hazeltine feeling like the ultimate anticlimax, a slow energy drain as we realized that Tiger would fail. What Yang pulled off is beyond incredible—the first (and still only) Asian-born golfer to win a men’s major, and the first person to beat Tiger at a major when Woods had a 54-hole lead. It’s the ultimate underdog story, but what we remember most is Tiger’s struggles that day and, of course, the worse struggles waiting for him just three months down the road. So let this be my attempt to right the wrongs: Yang was a monster that day, and made history in two indelible ways. He deserves to be thought of as more than just Tiger’s foil.

4. 1923, Gene Sarazen, Pelham Country Club

There are a lot of good reasons not have a match-play major championship, but then again, you could get the kind of action we got in 1923 when Sarazen met Walter Hagen in the championship match. You could make a good argument that this was the best match ever played, according to Denney, and it was dramatic until the finish. Sarazen actually blew a 2-up lead with three to play, Hagen sent it to extra holes, they birdied the 37th, and on the 38th, a drivable par 4, Hagen got in a bunker and couldn’t get out. (Again, imagine social media.) It’s worth noting that Hagen responded by going on one of the great revenge tears, winning the next four PGA Championships and three more Open Championships for good measure. Also worth noting that both men remain in the record books for the most holes playing in a single event as every match was a scheduled 36 holes—Sarazen played 194, Hagen 188.

3. 2014, Rory McIlroy, Valhalla

I was thrilled when Denney had this in his top five, because my own personal bias was likely to land it there anyway. I followed Rory that day, and the way he ignored Mickelson and Fowler on the sixth tee box (rain delays had stacked the groups up), almost creating a force field of energy around himself as he glared at nothing, was one of the most fierce and hostile acts I’d ever witnessed in this very polite sport. The ending is what everyone will remember—Rory playing on Rickie and Phil’s heels in the darkness, hitting a controversial approach shot before they had finished that privately left Phil fuming—and it was every bit the epic to Rory’s brilliant season. But the real story for me will always be one of the greatest golfers of his generation out-willing his rivals because he’d allow for no other outcome than a win. It’s made more special because, six years later, it remains the last time we saw that level of defiant greatness.

2. 2000, Tiger Woods, Valhalla

Are you steaming with rage that the Tiger-Bob May duel is only No. 2? Hang on to your hat, because there are a lot of nice things to say about it. Denney called it “the greatest modern shot-making duel” (distinguishing it from Henrik Stenson-Phil Mickelson, 2016 British Open at Troon, which he called a “scoring duel”), and “easily the best modern-era playoff.” My personal hot take is that May’s pitch on the first playoff hole followed by Tiger nailing his birdie putt is the greatest two-shot sequence I’ve ever seen, considering the circumstances. You can see those, and the rest of the staggering face-off, here:

One interesting side note from Denney: According to Ron Hickman, a rules official who was on the course at the time, Ken Venturi was wrong when he said that someone might have interfered with Tiger’s drive on 18, sending it to a better position. Per Hickman, who watched the ball, nobody touched it, and it was only a fortunate carom.

1. 1991, John Daly, Crooked Stick

You’re still mad about Tiger, aren’t you? Well shake it off, because this is one of the greatest golf stories ever, and that’s what it would take to usurp Tiger v. May. John Daly only made it into this tournament because nine—NINE—people dropped out, and Denney told me that when the PGA of America official called Daly to tell him he was in (at 5 p.m. on Wednesday), Daly was in Memphis and had to drive seven and a half hours to Indianapolis. Nick Price was one of the ones who dropped out, so Daly hired his caddie, Jeff (Squeaky) Medlen. They had never worked together before, and after seeing Daly’s swing, Medlen’s advice was simple: “Kill it.” Daly did, but did a lot more than just bomb on the tough Pete Dye course. He took the lead in the second round and never let it go, finishing at 12 under for the most shocking major-championship victory … ever? Daly has become an infamous character, iconic in his own way, but back then he was beyond unknown. This is the tournament that birthed the legend.

Photo by Stephen Munday

The post The 15 best PGA Championships, ranked appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Alex Myers
It’s hard to believe that not even two months ago the most talked-about issue in golf was something as silly as an announcer’s comment. Granted, Paul Azinger had seemed a bit condescending when discussing Tommy Fleetwood’s European Tour exploits, but with all that’s happened in the world since—and all that hasn’t while many things including professional golf tours have been put on pause—those words don’t seem at all important anymore. And it turns out Tommy Fleetwood himself never made a big deal about them.

Considering the vitriol aimed at Azinger from Golf Twitter during that Sunday at PGA National, golf fans might be surprised to hear Fleetwood’s reaction when informed of the NBC analyst’s opinion. Then again, maybe they won’t considering Fleetwood’s reputation as one of the game’s most positive—and popular among his peers—players.

“I don’t think he meant any malice by it, but the last thing you want is a bit more pressure put on you from broadcasters or commentators or outside influences,” Fleetwood said. “But I’m sure he didn’t mean it in the way he did, say it.”

Regardless, Fleetwood’s full and well-thought response to those comments and the story about how he heard about them from Rory McIlroy the day after his close call at the Honda Classic are worth hearing. And the current 10th-ranked player in the world shared both on this week’s Golf Digest Podcast.

We also talked to Tommy (interview starts at the 31:50 mark) about that viral video he filmed with Francesco Molinari in the wee hours of the night following Europe’s 2018 Ryder Cup victory and his breathtaking 63 at Shinnecock Hills on Sunday at the 2018 U.S. Open. Fleetwood also shared how he feels about a potential June PGA Tour restart and how he’s maintaining his famed luscious locks during quarantine.

Plus, Sam Weinman and Daniel Rapaport joined me to discuss the do’s and don’ts of playing golf in these scary times, a past PGA Tour winner turned ringer on the mini-tours, and why “The Match” Part II will be better than the original. Please have a listen:

The post Tommy Fleetwood on those Paul Azinger comments, that viral video with Francesco Molinari, and quarantine hair appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

So freaking classy. My apologies to cardigans everywhere. Arnie knew what’s up. Anyway, here’s what other important (and not-so-important) topics have us talking this week.

WE’RE BUYING

Tyrrell Hatton: In your face, Paul Azinger! At least, that’s what a lot of Europeans were feeling after the Brit won his first PGA Tour title—just a few months removed from wrist surgery (more on that later)—at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. And what a hard-fought victory it was as Hatton became the first player to win a PGA Tour event with two over-par scores on the weekend since Geoff Ogilvy at the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot.

Kevin C. Cox

Also, how good has this Florida Swing been? So much carnage! And we have another Winged Foot U.S. Open to look forward to in June! What a time to be alive! Except for that whole Coronavirus, of course.

European Tour playoff: The Qatar Masters was a wild ride down the stretch as Jorge Campillo went double bogey-bogey to drop into extra holes. But there, both he and David Drysdale put on a show, each birdieing the 18th hole TWICE (not a par 5, mind you) to keep things going. A third birdie by Campillo on his fifth attempt gave him his second win on “that” European Tour. Good for him, although most were rooting for the 44-year-old Drysdale to win his first in his (gulp) 498th start. Imagine getting into a playoff after all that time, coming up clutch with birdies on the first two extra holes, and still losing? Poor guy.

The Canadian Open(?): Oh, Canada! Thanks to a new metric (MOCCASINS) conceived by Golf Digest’s Shane Ryan and brought to life by stats guru Mark Broadie, this tournament in the Great White North has been deemed the greatest of all non majors. OK, so it’s just a seven-year sample size, but the RBC Canadian Open came in at No. 1 among regular events when it comes to producing the best leader boards based on its field during that time span.

Michael Reaves/Getty Images

The top three tournaments overall—again, according to MOCCASINS—were the PGA Championship, the Open Championship, and the Masters. Sorry, U.S. Open. But don’t worry, you’re still No. 1 in my unofficial CARNAGE ranking.

Rich Beem: The 2002 PGA champ and three-time PGA Tour winner has gotten very familiar with the/that European Tour thanks to his role with Sky Sports the past five years and he joined this week’s Golf Digest Podcast to discuss Azinger’s comments, his infamous victory shimmy, and the player he has a self-professed man-crush on. This was a fun one:

https://soundcloud.com/user-96678684/rich-beem-best-pga-tour-leader-boards

WE’RE SELLING

Rory McIlroy on Sundays: A quick look at the numbers reveals Rory has shot 67-68-69-73-68-76 on Sundays this season. Not bad, right? Well, sometimes stats don’t tell the entire story. McIlroy had those last four tournaments in his hands and didn’t convert any of them into wins. The good scores came thanks to late pushes after he had already lost the tournament. And the bad scores, like Sunday’s 76 at Bay Hill, may have been enough to keep his top-five streak alive, but they were, well, bad.

Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Look, no one is immune to final-round pressure (other than peak Tiger), but I’d expect an all-time great—which he is as further evidenced by him becoming the third golfer to be ranked World No. 1 for 100 total weeks—like McIlroy to not play like a mere mortal on Sundays.

Brooks Koepka on any day: The four-time major champ’s struggles reached rock bottom (we think) with an accidental tribute to Kobe Bryant on Saturday. On the bright side, Koepka improved on that 81 by 10 shots on Sunday, but offered this blunt assessment of his game after. “Still shit. Still shit. But putting better.”

Matt Sullivan/Getty Images

He’s right, it was better as he finished 44th in strokes gained putting among the 69 players who made the cut. For the season, though, he still ranks 208th(!) in that stat. Woof.

Tiger Woods’ new (sad) schedule: We talked last week about Woods opting to stay away from back-to-back starts, but now he seems to be staying away from non-major starts in general with his decision to skip this week’s Players Championship. The 44-year-old with a fused back is getting closer to a post-crash Ben Hogan (another big cardigan guy) schedule and as sad of a prospect as that is for golf fans, I don’t blame him. Heck, I’m not even 40 yet and I worry about throwing out my back every morning I get out of bed. Those weighted blankets are no joke.

ON TAP

The PGA Tour continues its Florida Swing with the Players Championship, AKA the PLAYERS, AKA that place where even Tiger Woods made a quadruple bogey on the island hole last year. At least Tiger fans don’t have to worry about seeing something like that again with Woods sitting out this week. By the way, I also happen to be a late scratch from TPC Sawgrass, unfortunately. And it has nothing to do with Tiger not being there. I swear. OK, well, maybe it has a little bit to do with that. . .

Random tournament fact: Despite all the debating, the Players Championship is not a major. However, TPC Sawgrass could wind up hosting one this year.

I'm told officials from the PGA Tour and PGA are discussing a contingency plan that could move @PGAChampionship from Harding Park in San Francisco to TPC Sawgrass. PGA statement below. #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/vb1JhQtNUp

— Robert Lusetich (@RobertLusetich) March 9, 2020

As much fun as that would be, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Stay safe out there, folks. And remember to keep washing your hands.

RANDOM PROP BETS OF THE WEEK

—Tiger will play as many events as Sungjae Im this year: 1-MILLION -to-1 odds
—Brooks Koepka will win the Players: 45-to-1 odds (Actual odds. . . value?)
—The Ponte Vedra Beach Chili’s will do a lot less business without me in town: LOCK

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

That’s the infamous Hinkle Tree being removed from the Inverness Club. The tree, which was planted by the eighth tee before the second round of the 1979 U.S. Open to keep players (notably Lon Hinkle) from using a shortcut to reach the par 5 in two, was cut down after winds recently uprooted it. So RIP Hinkle Tree, but what you stood for won’t be forgotten by the USGA. Protect par at all costs. Even if that means buying a tree for $120 during a golf tournament.

VIRAL VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Another week, another full-court putt made at a basketball game. This time the prize was. . . free bacon for a year?

This guy won free bacon for a year… FREE BACON FOR A YEAR!!!

Congrats to Logan for sinking today’s @smokehousemeats Putt for Pig Challenge at @MizzouHoops home finale.#SCTop10 #MIZ ??? pic.twitter.com/dOSlnVEP2m

— Mizzou Athletics (@MizzouAthletics) March 8, 2020

As far as prizes go, this isn’t quite as good as a free car that 84-year-old lady recently got, but it’s a heckuva lot better than the pile of scratch-off tickets the Knicks recently gave some dude for hitting a half-court shot. And in terms of free food, you could do a lot worse than bacon. Mmm. Bacon.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I drank a lot of red wine and played Xbox.” —Tyrrell Hatton on what he did while recovering from his wrist surgery in November.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B5dWtRonM0N/?utm_source=ig_embed

Right now, there are a lot of college kids wondering why they aren’t better at golf.

THIS WEEK IN PGA TOUR PRO-WAGS PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8sWLc0FnPx/?utm_source=ig_embed

OK, so that is a few weeks old, but it’s the most recent photo we could obtain of this cute couple. Why are we highlighting the Baddeleys, you ask? Because Golf Digest’s latest PGA Tour pro survey OFFICIALLY (sort of) answered an often-asked question concerning WAGs and Richelle came out on top:

Good job by Dave Shedloski and John Huggan doing some important reporting. Just imagining Huggy asking that question made my week. Anyway, the magazine even included this fun illustration:

So congrats to Richelle! And congrats to Aaron! Good going, guy!

THIS AND THAT

Tommy Fleetwood’s active-leading PGA Tour cut streak ended at 33. Pretty good for someone who has only won on that European Tour. . . . Congrats to Ernie Els on winning his first PGA Tour Champions title in his third start and for easily being the guy PGA Tour pros would want on their side in a bar fight, according to our survey. The Big Easy may have been a unanimous choice if he wasn’t 50. . . . The PGA Tour’s new TV deal ensures CBS will continue to broadcast at least 19 events through 2030. In other words, Golf Twitter has something to collectively bitch about for another decade. . . . And as always, my wife—who gets my vote for “best-looking golf writer WAG”—made me this delicious M&M and Kit-Kat encrusted chocolate cake for my birthday:

Although this year, she had to substitute some Cadbury milk chocolate bars around the perimeter because someone* (*me) had already eaten some of the Kit Kats. Anyway, I’m not complaining.

RANDOM QUESTIONS TO PONDER

Would Tiger have played if this week was the Masters?
What tree/bunker/lake would you remove from your home course?
What item of food would you like to win a year’s supply of?

The post Tiger Woods’ new (sad) schedule, Tyrrell Hatton’s fun rehab routine, and PGA Tour pros pick the “best-looking” WAG appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.