Majors Preview
Just when you thought Mickelson and Woods belonged to the bygone
Tiger Woods approaches the 18th green during the final round of the 2018 TOUR Championship at East Lake (and if you look carefully you might spot playing partner Rory McIlroy...)
The schedule has been shaken up and the cast list spiced. So what do the four major championships of
2019 have in store? There are more questions than usual— is Bryson DeChambeau the real deal? Can Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth recuperate their sublime skills?
Can Phil Mickelson finally complete the career Grand Slam?
When will Dustin Johnson realize how good he is?
Will anyone ever cheer for Patrick Reed? And what about Rickie Fowler?
The biggest question of all, though, concerns none of these stars.
At Paul Trow’s invitation, read on…
Two words encircle the forthcoming major championships, and no prizes for guessing the first starts with ‘T’ and the second with ‘W’.
Tiger Woods, becalmed on 14 of golf’s blue-ribbon titles since 2008, is at last firing on something approaching all cylinders after nigh on five years of ill health that necessitated no fewer than four bouts of back surgery.
After showing encouraging glimpses of form early in 2018 he became a genuine contender at the final two majors—the [British] Open at Carnoustie, where he led at the turn on Sunday only for a cold putter to push him back into a tie for sixth, and the PGA Championship at Bellerive, where he gave Brooks Koepka a serious ‘hurry up’ before claiming second place on his own with a closing 64.
The momentum continued when he claimed victory in the Tour Championship and the uninhibited crowds at East Lake hinted at further pandemonium behind the ropes should Woods look like emulating this exploit in 2019 at any of the four tournaments that matter most.
He now stands on 80 PGA Tour victories, just two behind long-time trailblazer Sam Snead, but his abiding goal is to eat into the four-win margin that separates him from Jack Nicklaus at the apex of the majors’ honors board. There are, of course, a few inspirational precedents for his heroic comeback, not least that of Ben Hogan, who claimed six of his nine major titles after surviving a head-on collision with a Greyhound bus in February 1949.
A parallel sub-plot will also unfold this year as golf fans—whether lining the fairways, propping a bar, slaving at work, or simply lolling on the couch—take advantage of new laws governing sports betting. Tiger has long been the punters’ darling, especially during the period when he won at least once every three times he teed up. Backers, despite being quoted 2/1 by miserly offshore bookies, still turned a lucrative profit. Naturally, many will root again for their hero; and if he hits the jackpot Uncle Sam will take a healthy tax cut too.
But despite last year’s fireworks, Woods can expect stiffer competition and longer odds this time compared to his halcyon days, from the instant he turned pro late in 1996 to the middle of 2013 when his ailing back started to get the better of him.
He’s still a long way short of reclaiming the No.1 spot he held in the world rankings for a record 683 weeks and the names in front of and immediately behind him in the current pecking order will not cower from a charging Tiger like those around him once did.
Taking turns at the top
Adam Scott, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Justin Rose and Koepka have all donned the uneasy crown since the great one relinquished it in May 2014, and Woods, back up to 13th spot [at the time of going to print], still lagged behind McIlroy, Johnson, Thomas, Rose and Koepka at the turn of the year. Day is 11th and Spieth is down to 24th after modest 2018 seasons by their high standards—Spieth even failed to qualify for the Tour Championship—while Scott languishes in 30th despite showing signs of revival by finishing third behind Koepka and Woods at the PGA Championship.
Six younger men also sat closer to the top of the tree than Tiger, and all have the potential to become multiple major champions. Italy’s Francesco Molinari, who impressively held off Woods at Carnoustie and went on to secure a 100 per cent record at the Ryder Cup in Paris, is the only one to have breasted the tape in a major thus far; but it is surely only a matter of time before Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Rickie Fowler, Tony Finau and Xander Schauffele join him in the winners’ enclosure. And it should not be overlooked that the men at 15th and 16th are both Masters champions—Patrick Reed, who last April defied both an unsupportive gallery and a family desperate for reconciliation, and Bubba Watson, who donned the Green Jacket in 2012 and 2014.
Trawling through the 20s and 30s in the world ranking and a whole host of other major winners can be spotted. Indeed, Webb Simpson, Keegan Bradley, Louis Oosthuizen, Henrik Stenson, Sergio Garcia, Phil Mickelson and Scott are all more than capable of landing another bauble if it turns out to be their week.
In the case of Mickelson, who hits 49 in June, who knows what to expect? After playing hockey on the 13th green at Shinnecock Hills in the U.S. Open and somehow escaping disqualification, he was all at sea at the Ryder Cup yet scooped the $9m pot in his winner-takes-all tilt at Woods, before winning at Pebble Beach in February. Lefty has won the Masters three times and could easily again if his putter heats up, plus he has [British] Open and PGA trophies in the locker. All his majors résumé requires is his national championship, after six runners-up finishes. So can Mickelson win twice at Pebble in the space of five months, as the U.S. Open is there from June 13-16? This probably represents his best chance as the traditionally thick U.S. Open rough—that would surely ensnare his increasingly wayward tee ball at any other venue—will largely be absent.
Ironically, the gargantuanly long and treacherously narrow Black Course at Bethpage Park, where the rescheduled PGA Championship will be held for the first time from May 16-19, has been the scene of two of Mickelson’s seconds in the U.S. Open (2002 and 2009). So it should be little surprise if the Long Island layout proves again to be a happy hunting ground.
Given the successes of Reed and Molinari in 2018, it seems likely that at least one of the major winners over the next few months will be new to the experience. Fowler, having recently reached the relative maturity of his 30th birthday, would appear to be the outstanding candidate, especially as his 15 top-20 finishes in 36 major starts include three second places.
But DeChambeau, who has soared like a meteor in the PGA Tour firmament with five victories over the past 18 months, is proving to be a force of nature as well as the science he rigorously espouses across every aspect of his golf game.
Spaniard Rahm ended 2018 with a thumping victory in Tiger’s Hero Challenge in the Bahamas while Schauffele and Finau, who chalked up one-two in last October’s WGC-HSBC event in Shanghai, and England’s Tommy Fleetwood—Molinari’s comfort blanket at the Ryder Cup— are all in the frame. So too is the often overlooked though eminently worthy Marc Leishman, who is perhaps a better prospect for his native Australia at present than either of his countrymen Day or Scott.
But with the likes of Spieth, Thomas, Johnson, McIlroy and Rose around, any pretender to the throne will need to be on his A+ game. Spieth has gone from being the finest putter in the world to the most serial misser of three-footers; but rest assured—a terrible vengeance will be exacted when his gossamer touch returns. Johnson, despite regular brainstorms, can overpower any course on the planet while the two Justins, Thomas and Rose, are so consistent from tee to green that woe betide their rivals when their flat sticks warm up.
The American way
The key move by any of the top players as 2018 segued into 2019, however, came from McIlroy, who will be 30 in May. Not one to sidestep controversy, he announced last November, prompting much raising of eyebrows, that he’d decided to turn his back on the European Tour until after the FEDEXCUP. The loss of his box-office star was a body blow to CEO Keith Pelley, undoubtedly, but surely a sensible move for a golfing genius determined to make the most of his precocious talents on the game’s most elevated stage before it’s too late. McIlroy plans a full schedule Stateside in 2019 and by the time he gets to Bay Hill in March he will have a fair idea whether he’s made the right move.
Notwithstanding his pride at defending the Arnold Palmer Invitational, one of the PGA Tour’s iconic events, and his determination to complete a personal Grand Slam at Augusta National (April 11-14) after so many Masters disappointments, McIlroy’s ultimate focus this year must
be on his native Northern Ireland and the majestic links of Royal Portrush, where the Open returns after an absence of 68 years.
Since England’s Max Faulkner lifted the Claret Jug against a cut-price field that sprinkled little stardust and is only remembered in monochrome black and white, Royal Portrush, located on the north coast of County Antrim and managed deftly through the Troubles to its glorious present by the redoubtable Wilma Erskine, has become a favorite destination for visiting American golfers.
At the age of 16, McIlroy carded 61 to set the course record over the Dunluce Links. Darren Clarke, Open champion at Sandwich in 2011, has a house that overlooks the 2nd fairway, and another local neighbor is Graeme McDowell, U.S. Open winner at Pebble Beach in 2010. Expect this trio to be prominent during the week of July 18-21, though McDowell still has work to do to secure his place in the field.
But all of the above could turn out to be so much hot air if the man who was unchallenged as the player of 2018, Koepka, hits his straps again. After missing the Masters due to a wrist injury last April, the bomber from eastern Florida soon made up for lost time by holing putt after putt down the stretch at Shinnecock Hills to keep Fleetwood’s closing 63 at bay. His triumph in 2017 at Erin Hills in Wisconsin had been dismissed as a freak result on a singularly non-U.S. Open layout. Not so the hallowed and historic Shinnecock Hills, butchered though it was by the USGA both in terms of condition and appearance.
Koepka maintained his momentum by annexing the PGA Championship during a low-scoring week two months later and then, as an encore, maintained his irresistible momentum by breezing past a high-class field in the CJ Cup in South Korea in October.
With the four majors of 2019 concertinaed for the first time in living memory into a 15-week window, a player like Koepka, who has proved he can hit and hold the high notes when on song, will be a threat. The chip of non-recognition that sat awkwardly on his shoulder after last year’s achievements seems to be a continuing source of resentment and motivation.
So don’t bet against him this time, though the acid test may well come when he finds himself dueling in the heat of battle with the phenomenon identified by those initials ‘T’ and ‘W’. Golf fans, not to mention the bookies, can’t wait.