By John Berry
We happen to be just a few hours removed from the start of a new year. Although it is difficult to prognosticate what the future will hold in the world of professional golf with regard to the civil war between the PGA Tour and the LIV Golf Tour, there are some things that are already etched in concrete when it comes to the top players and their well known playgrounds.
For fans of the game who live in the colder portions of our country, the golf season doesn’t truly begin until the dogwoods and azaleas are in full bloom and the top linksters in the world tee it up at the Masters at Augusta National in Georgia in early April. The Masters always returns to the same site year in and year out although the course doesn’t ever seem to favor any one style of play. After all this is a tournament that has favored a short hitting wedge-master such as Zach Johnson as well as a bomber like Vijay Singh. Power player Jon Rahm of Spain is the defending champion. In many ways, the weather will have a lot to say about what style of play is most likely to prevail at Augusta National. The Masters runs from April 11-14.
The PGA Championship rotates from site to site and this year’s tournament will be held at the Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville. Valhalla has hosted three previous PGA Championships as well as the 2008 Ryder Cup won by Team USA. Valhalla is a bomber’s course that can be stretched out to 7,500 yards. Rory McIlroy won the 2014 PGA while Tiger Woods won it in 2000. However don’t be deceived by its length. When Tiger won he got to -18 under par while Rory came in at -16 under par. The PGA is scheduled to be contested from May 16-19.
The 124th annual edition of the United States Open is also at a familiar venue, namely the Number Two course at the Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina. Pinehurst is a venerable Donald Ross design and hosted its first major in 1936 when Denny Shute won the PGA Championship. More recently, Martin Kaymer won the 2014 U.S. Open. Earlier renditions of our National Open were won by Michael Campbell in 2005 and the late Payne Stewart in 1999. Pinehurst has extremely difficult greens to hit and the eventual champion will need to have all aspects of his game working to be able to reach the winner’s circle. The U.S. Open historically concludes on Father’s Day.
The men’s major golf season is wrapped up in mid July with the 152nd running of the British Open at the storied Royal Troon Golf Club on Scotland’s western coast. It goes without saying that weather is normally a big factor during Open Championship week at Troon. Initially founded in 1878, this will mark the tenth time that Royal Troon has hosted the Open. Troon rewards the pure ball striker although that hasn’t always been the case. 1950 champion Bobby Locke and 1997 titlist Justin Leonard won because of their deft putting touches. Arnold Palmer won in 1962, Tom Weiskopf captured the Claret Jug in 1973, and Mark Calcavecchia prevailed in 1989, all by bombing their way around the links at Royal Troon. Iron masters Tom Watson, the 1982 winner, and Henrik Stenson, the most recent champion in 2016, won the Open at Troon due to rock solid iron play. As for Todd Hamilton, the 2004 champ, he won with a unique chipping style, using his hybrid club instead of a seven iron. There have been lots of different ways to conquer Royal Troon over the past 101 years of Open competition.
The women who play on the LPGA Tour have five major championships. The major formerly known as the Dinah Shore has now moved from Palm Desert to Houston and is played at The Club at Carlton Woods. Like the Dinah Shore, it will always return to the same venue. It is hosted by Chevron. The Women’s U.S. Open is at Lancaster Country Club in Pennsylvania. In Gee Chun of South Korea won the Women’s Open there in 2015. The KPMG Women’s PGA Championship also rotates from site to site and this year it visits the Pacific Northwest and Sahalee Country Club outside Seattle. Sahalee is a heavily tree lined course that hosted the 1998 PGA Championship won by Vijay Singh. Two time U.S. Open champ Lee Janzen once stated that the best way to prepare for the narrow fairways at Sahalee would be to practice your golf game while playing down Fifth Avenue in New York City.
The final two LPGA majors of the season are both overseas events. The Evian Championship is held at the Evian Resort Golf Club in France. Like the Chevron Championship, it is held at the same site each and every year. The final women’s major of the year is the AIG Women’s British Open. This year’s Women’s Open Championship will be contested at the birthplace of golf, namely the Old Course at St. Andrews. The women have played at St. Andrews on two other occasions with Hall of Famer Lorena Ochoa winning there in 2007 while American Stacy Lewis won the Women’s Open at the Old Course in 2012.
The PGA Champions Tour is the home of golfers aged 50 and above. It too has five major championships. The Tradition opens the major season for the senior set and will be contested at the Greystone Golf and Country Club in Birmingham, Alabama. Greystone’s Founders Course has hosted The Tradition since 2016. The Kitchen Aid Senior PGA Championship returns to Harbor Shores Golf Club in Benton Harbor, Michigan in late May for the seventh time. The Senior PGA is the oldest of the five senior majors, having first been founded in 1937. As a brief aside, the very first Senior PGA was played at the Augusta National Golf Club, the home of the Masters. Harbor Shores is a classic Jack Nicklaus design.
The other three senior majors are contested this year at historic venues. The Kaulig Companies Championship, formerly The Senior Players, returns to Firestone in Akron, Ohio for the sixth year in a row. The U.S. Senior Open is at storied Newport County Club in Rhode Island, one of the founding five members of the United States Golf Association in 1895. Tiger Woods won the U.S. Amateur there. Finally the Senior British Open will be contested in July at the diabolical Carnoustie Golf Links in eastern Scotland. Carnoustie has hosted eight Open Championships, two Women’s Opens, and this year will mark the third time that the senior set has been to the course best remembered for Jean Van de Velde’s 1999 British Open meltdown.
For those of you who are fans of major championship golf, 2024 should be a great year for viewing great courses played by some of the best golfers in the world. And to think, we’re just 10 week removed from the start of the Masters at Augusta National.
