With just three columns left until the end of 2022, we will begin our review of all that happened in the world of golf this past year. This week we’ll take a look back at the major champions and their accomplishments this year. We will follow that up with a review of the issues of the year and conclude with a look at the local Lake County golf scene.
Things were spread around quite a bit this year as there were 14 different winners of the 14 major championships contested on the three major professional levels in 2022. It was a year with a multitude of breakthrough champions at some very historic venues. It also marked the closing of the California desert books on what used to be known as the Dinah Shore.
The official beginning of spring in the minds of many amateur golfers is the week when the Masters tees it up. Going into this year’s Masters, Scottie Scheffler was the hottest golfer on the planet. After four rounds in Augusta, Scheffler was still the No. 1-ranked golfer in the world. It marked a six-month run where the relatively unknown Scheffler went from Ryder Cup hero to three-time tour winner to major champion. The other storyline this time was the return of Tiger Woods to competitive golf. Tiger made the cut but seemed to suffer physically.
One month later Justin Thomas won his second PGA Championship, this time at Southern Hills. The iconic Tulsa course was a replacement for Trump Bedminister, the original site of the 2022 PGA. JT now has 15 wins on tour, including last year’s Players Championship.
The United States Open returned to The Country Club outside Boston. One of the five founding members of the USGA, The Country Club was the site of the 1913 U.S. Open when amateur Francis Ouimet bested the top golfers of that era, namely Harry Vardon and Ted Ray. This time around the Open trophy returned to the other side of the Atlantic as Englishman Matt Fitzpatrick demonstrated his mastery of his irons to capture his first major title.
The 150th Open Championship returned to St. Andrews’ Old Course in July. Australian Cameron Smith outlasted American rookie Cameron Young to collect the Claret Jug. Earlier in the year Smith has won the Players Championship. Irishman Rory McIlroy had led for most of the tournament, but a final-round 70 featured hitting every green in regulation and missing a lot of birdie putts. Rory finished third and has been winless in the majors since 2014.
The LPGA Tour is truly a worldwide circuit based on its schedule and its membership. There are five women’s majors with the Chevron (formerly the Dinah Shore) kicking off the season. Former world No. 1 amateur Jennifer Kupcho won her first major as well as her first LPGA event in early April and then reeled off two more wins in the summer. Sad to say but the Chevron is relocating from its longtime home at Mission Hills in the California desert to Houston. It was first contested 50 years ago in Palm Desert in 1972.
Another former amateur No. 1, Minjee Lee of Australia, ran away with the Women’s U.S. Open at Pine Needles in June. It was her second major triumph in a career that has seen her win eight LPGA tourneys. Lee’s win was the only women’s major runaway as she defeated Mina Harigae by four strokes. The other four majors were won by just one stroke.
Korean In Gee Chung won the Women’s PGA in late June, defeating Minjee Lee and Lexi Thompson by one stroke. Although she has just four wins on the LPGA Tour during a 10-year career, three of those wins are majors. At the Women’s British Open at Muirfield, South African Ashleigh Buhai won in a playoff over Chung. It was Buhai’s only LPGA win in 15 years.
Canadian Brooke Henderson won her second LPGA major this past year with a win at the Evian Championship in France. She too was a No. 1-ranked amateur before turning pro in 2014. She was just 17. The unique thing about this past season’s LPGA major titlists is that for the first time since 1998, all the majors were won by women who held the lead after 54 holes.
Five senior majors resulted in five different champions, and yet some of the Champions Tour winners could have made it two-plus major wins in 2022. They came so very close. Following a busy 2021 as the USA Ryder Cup captain, Steve Stricker won the Tradition by six strokes over European Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington in May. It was Stricker’s fourth senior major.
Stricker and Harrington flipped the switch at the U.S. Senior Open at Saucon Valley with the Irishman winning by one stroke. It was his first Champions Tour win as well as the first senior major for the 50-year-old Harrington. Padraig would go on to win another three times later in the year and finish second overall in the season long Schwab Cup’s points race.
Finishing first in the Schwab Cup while winning four times, including the Senior PGA, was New Zealand journeyman Steven Alker. Alker was the ultimate rags to riches story. Steven who?
Jerry Kelly has had a stellar career as a senior golfer and his victory in the Senior Players was his second major in three years. The 56-year-old Kelly has won 11 times on the Champions Tour and had a trio of wins on the regular PGA Tour.
It was 11 years ago that Darren Clarke won the British Open after a rough stretch following the death of his wife, Heather, from cancer. This past summer Clarke added to his golfing legacy with his victory in the Senior British Open at Gleneagles. He gutted out a one-stroke win over Alker and Harrington for his first senior tour major victory.
This past year was a very unique one with no one earning multiple major championship victories in 2022. Yet if one were to validly concur that the career of a true champion golfer is determined by his or her ability to win a major tournament, then this year was a very good one for 14 top-notch golfers on the PGA Tour, the LPGA Tour, and the PGA Champions Tour. While it is easy to argue that a number of golfers made more money that some of their counterparts who brought home the major title hardware, I think that it is believable that Matt Fitzpatrick, Jennifer Kupcho and Darren Clarke aren’t willing to trade their major for any amount of money.
