It’s the final month of 2015 and it’s once again that time to review all that went on in the world of golf. During the next few weeks, we’ll be taking a look back upon 2015 from the perspective of the professional tours, the game and its overall impact, and the local golf scene. The story of the year comes from the game’s top echelon, namely from the world of men’s professional golf.
For all intents and purposes, the Tiger Woods era that dominated the game’s headlines during the past 20 years has pretty much come to an end. Woods’ contemporaries are well into their 40s in the case of Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and Padraig Harrington, and a 50-something in the case of Vijay Singh. Yet a new threesome of young and talented linksters chose 2015 as the year to take over the leader boards of major championships as well as dominate play on the American PGA Tour and the European Tour.
The golfer of the year for 2015 is Jordan Spieth of Texas. A young 22-year-old, Spieth entered the year on a strong note, having won the Australian Open and the Hero World Challenge in December of 2014. Little did we know that those wins were mere window dressing for a most memorable 2015 campaign.
During the Florida swing, Spieth won the Valspar at Tampa, getting through a sudden-death playoff with Patrick Reed and Sean O’Hair. The following month, Spieth took the first-round lead in the Masters and never relinquished it, going wire to wire to take home the green jacket for his first major triumph. Jordan was the second youngest winner of the Masters after Tiger Woods and his 18-under-par aggregate was a record-setting feat.
In June, Spieth survived the quirkiness of Chambers Bay and prevailed over Dustin Johnson and Louis Oosthuizen to win the 115th version of the United States Open. Spieth birdied the final hole on National Open Sunday and was mentally prepared for an 18-hole Monday playoff when Dustin Johnson three-putted to hand him his second major title. Yet Chambers Bay was just as much about Spieth winning the Open as Johnson losing it.
The following month, Spieth demonstrated his loyalty to the John Deere folks, played in the Quad Cities, and won it in a playoff before rushing across the ocean to play in the British Open at St. Andrews. Jordan’s quest for the grand slam came up one stroke short on a rainy Monday during final-round play and he finished tied for fourth place at St. Andrews. The dream of the grand slam was over, but Spieth’s season was far from over. Now the No. 1-ranked golfer in the world, he finished solo second at the PGA at Whistling Straits and then won the season-ending Tour Championship to take home the yearlong Fed Ex Cup Championship and its $10 million bonus. A win in the Presidents Cup against a strong International team concluded one of the greatest seasons in PGA Tour history with two major wins. That’s pretty heady stuff for a 22-year-old. I think it’s safe to say that he hasn’t yet peaked.
Any other time, 2015 would have been the year of Jason Day. Yet the 27-year-old Australian had to share center stage with Jordan Spieth and came up one major short. Nonetheless, this past year was a career-defining season for the ultra-talented Day.
Jason started off the year on a strong note, winning a four-way playoff at Torrey Pines. He had the midpoint lead in the U.S. Open but fainted during third-round play from imbalance issues and struggled to finish among the top 10. The British Open in July brought further heartbreak as Day came up just short on his final putt at St. Andrews, finishing one stroke out of the three-way playoff for the claret jug.
Upon returning from Scotland, Day went on a tear. He won the Canadian Open before putting it all together at Whistling Straits, shot an incredible 20-under-par, and won his first major, the PGA Championship, by three strokes over Spieth. Whistling Straits is a tough, modern classic and Day bombarded the course with precision 330-yard drives and a deft putting touch. It was a most emotional moment for the golfing world and Day when his final putt fell to seal the deal. Yet he didn’t rest on his laurels as he won two of the four Fed Ex Cup playoff events in Boston and Chicago in September. 2015 was a breakout year for Jason Day.
Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy thinks he underachieved in 2015. Others simply think he had an untimely soccer accident that kept him out of competition for six weeks. Nonetheless, he won the Wells Fargo in May, won the World Match Play at Harding Park, won at Dubai on the European Tour in February, and won the European Tour Championship last month to take home the season-long Race to Dubai as the overall champion of the European Tour.
Already the winner of four majors, McIlroy didn’t add to his grand slam total in 2015 with a fourth-place finish at the Masters, a ninth at the U.S. Open, a could-not-play in the British Open, and a rebounding 17th at the PGA in his return from injured reserve. It was a down year by McIlroy standards but it still had the usual array of highlights.
What all this means for the future of golf remains to be seen, but if Spieth, Day and McIlroy can build upon their careers, the game of golf will be the benefactor. It is quite possible we are entering an era similar to the golden age of Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player of the 1960s and 1970s. And just like the way the big three had their foils in the persons of Billy Casper, Julius Boros, Lee Trevino and Tom Watson, the new big three of 2015 has its share of contemporaries with Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson, Justin Rose, Webb Simpson and a bunch of guys in their 20s who are just entering their golfing primes.
As we’ve mentioned in past columns, golf has been most entertaining when its top three players are able to dominate leader boards. It seems like now is the time to sit back and enjoy the exploits of Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and Rory McIlroy, the modern version of Ben Hogan, Sam Snead and Byron Nelson. 2015 marked the beginning of this new era.
