How to evaluate the 2024 golf year? Politically, the turmoil continued with no sign of resolution, as leaders came and went with unusual regularity.
The Americans swept the men’s majors, bringing even more heartache to Rory McIlroy, while Nelly Korda dominated a women’s tour that lost some of its biggest names.
Great Britain and Ireland were brilliant winners of the Curtis Cup, but the United States ultimately gave in to player pressure for Ryder Cup team members to receive payment.
In a sense, these two titles summed up the game; there was still room for heartwarming romance, even if much of the elite was swept up in a largely uncontrolled river of greed.
There were some very good performances, with significant highs, but there were also worrying and tragic lows.
Let’s embark on a tour of 2024 performances with, in no particular order, 18 of the year’s defining memories.
1. The beginning of Scheffler
World number one Scottie Scheffler defended The Players Championship to set the tone for the year. Many big names have triumphed at Sawgrass, but no one had won the title in consecutive years until Wyndham Clark won the last one to give Scheffler the victory last March.
2. Augusta Mastery
The big Texan won at Bay Hill the week before the Players, then was runner-up in Houston before earning a second Green Jacket with a victory at the Masters. Scheffler scored four shots from Swede Ludvig Aberg, second in his major debut, while England’s Tommy Fleetwood tied for third. Scheffler, meanwhile, won the Heritage a week later in a stunning and dominant period of golf. In true Tiger Woods fashion of old, no one came close to challenging his position as top dog all year long.
3. Korda’s sequence
While Scheffler set the standard for the men, Nelly Korda did the same on the women’s circuit. Korda defeated Lydia Ko at the Drive On Championship in late January to complete a five-fight winning streak, culminating in the 26-year-old’s second major victory at the Chevron Championship. Korda was the first to win five in a row since Annika Sorenstam in 2004/5. She will become the first player since Yani Tseng in 2011 to win seven tournaments in an LPGA Tour season.
4. Korda’s move
However, despite being the heavy favorite at the US Women’s Open, Korda’s hopes were drowned in three holes at the Lancaster Country Club in Pennsylvania. Playing the back nine first, she dumped three balls into the water at the par-three 12th to rack up a ruinous 10 as she missed the cut.
5. Scheffler’s arrest
Proving that the world’s number ones are not immune to left-field shocks, Scheffler was stopped on his way to the second round of the US PGA Championship. He passed a police officer to escape a traffic jam at the entrance to Valhalla. The officer alleged assault and Scheffler was taken to jail in handcuffs. The world number one warmed up in a cell, was released on bail and shot a 66. All charges were later dropped. You couldn’t make it up.
6. Schauffele’s double
A crestfallen Scheffler was unable to complete his challenge and Xander Schauffele took the opportunity to land his first major. The American birdied the last to beat LIV’s Bryson DeChambeau on a course that proved far too easy for a major. Schauffele also won the Open with a sublime 65 at a much more testing, wet and windy Royal Troon on the Ayrshire coast. This means American players have won all four men’s majors for the first time since 1982.
7. The fate of DeChambeau
DeChambeau atoned for his absence in Valhalla with the most spectacular major victory of the year, beating Rory McIlroy for the US Open at Pinehurst. McIlroy led by two with five to play and his barren decade-long career in the big four seemed over. But he made a bogey at 15, missed a tiddler at 16 and a little devil at 18 to open the door for a ragged DeChambeau.
The unconventional American hit the shot of the year from a fairway bunker to go up and down for a winning par in the final. It was LIV’s and their second major victory. McIlroy’s haunted, shocked face in the recorder area was the image of the year.
8. Ko’s cracker
How refreshing it was to see the Old Course play like the test it was supposed to be when the AIG Women’s Open arrived at St Andrews in August. Lydia Ko’s long-range, championship-winning approach to the famous 17th was among the shots of the year. This after Korda, defending champion Lilia Vu, Jiyai Shin and Ruoning Yin all stumbled to share second place.
9. Golden Glory
Ko was on the right track after winning the Olympics brilliantly with his gold medal joining the silver and bronze won at the previous Games. The Kiwi’s triumph followed another victory for Scheffler, as he breezed through the field with a closing 62 in Paris. It overshadowed Fleetwood’s courageous challenge after Jon Rahm and McIlroy threatened golden glory on what turned out to be the best golf day of 2024, with so many big guns involved in such a dramatic shootout.
10. Change your face
Behind the scenes, everything was changing in the corridors of power. Guy Kinnings has succeeded Keith Pelley with the DP World Tour, frustratingly awaiting the outcome of ongoing negotiations between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia. Could the DPWT partner with the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF)? Many see this as an attractive option if the current impasse persists. Northampton rugby’s Mark Darbon has arrived to replace Martin Slumbers at the R&A and Derek Sprague is the new man in charge at the PGA of America.
11. Trump’s claim
Embattled boss Jay Monahan still runs the PGA Tour, but the commissioner wants a new CEO. Will he be helped by America’s new president and golf enthusiast Donald Trump, who insists he can cure the golf civil war “in 15 minutes”.
The recruiting process is underway, just like at the LPGA where Mollie Marcus Samaan surprisingly ended her three-year tenure.
12. Solheim Success
Spectator bus chaos was the only downside to a triumphant Solheim Cup for the United States. Skipper Stacy Lewis inspired her team to withstand a spirited European fightback on the final day. Late points in Virginia meant the continent’s hopes vanished in a cloud of smoke, just like a Charley Hull cigarette.
13. Curtis Mug Set
More impressive was GB&I’s victory in the Curtis Cup. Catriona Matthew was a fantastic captain, bringing the calm and insightful management that was the hallmark of her two successes at Solheim. On paper, it is the American amateurs who would win. At the Old Course at Sunningdale, the home team had other exciting ideas. A great weekend.
14. Ryder Reward
Events such as the Curtis Cup are becoming healthier, especially now that American Ryder Cup players will receive $500,000, including a $200,000 stipend, to play for their country. Money is the biggest barrier to golf, but avid players and their administrators seem to ignore it.
15. Woods Legacy
Yet the number of majors won by Tiger Woods and that total never seemed to change in 2024. Indeed, this may be the year we conclude he won’t win again.
Woods battled to qualify at Augusta, but never came close to playing the weekends of the remaining three majors before undergoing further back surgery. He turned down the US Ryder Cup captaincy, which surprisingly went to Keegan Bradley, to focus on PGA Tour negotiations with Saudi Arabia.
Woods’ best shot this year was his son Charlie’s hole-in-one at December’s PNC Family Championship.
16. Bob’s Breakthrough
The PGA Tour has proven a favored hunting ground for DPWT graduates such as Bob MacIntyre and Frenchman Mathieu Pavon. The Scot won the Canadian Open with his father on the bag, then the Scottish Open for a thrilling victory that counted on both tours. A year to cherish for the Oban left-hander. He and Pavon reached the 30-man tour championship, as did Wolverhampton’s Aaron Rai.
17. Call time
Big names have left the LPGA Tour, including 29-year-old Lexi Thompson, who is retiring from full-time play as fellow Solheim stars Ally Ewing, Marina Alex and Brittany Lincicome announced their retirements. Major champions So Yeon Ryu and IK Kim also said goodbye and Catriona Matthew played her final Women’s Open.
18. In memory
Unfortunately, the game has lost too many big names in 2024, with the announced deaths of two Ryder Cup stalwarts, the Englishman Peter Oosterhuis (75 years old) and the “Welsh Bulldog” Brian Huggett (87 years old). Both were great men of golf, architects of the modern game, who will be greatly missed.
The sport was shocked by the tragic loss of PGA Tour winner Grayson Murray and former professional turned broadcaster Mark Carnevale (64). Legend Chi Chi Rodriguez has died aged 88, Hall of Famer Susie Maxwell Berning (83), former R&A Head Professional Jim Farmer (76) and respected American writer and much appreciated Jeff Babineau (62) were also mourned in 2024.
