It’s still only September and there’s plenty of golf to be played this calendar year, but with the PGA Tour season about to embark on its 2019-20 season, we thought it’d be a good time to share our favorite golf stories of the year, as chosen by the Golfweek staff.
The Irishman no one was paying attention to
Tiger Woods winning the Masters was undoubtedly the Story of the Century so far and we enjoyed a dead-heat photo finish for Shot of the Year between Jennifer Kupcho’s fairway wood into 13 at Augusta National and Gary Woodland adding to the roster of indelible Pebble Beach moments with his 17th green wedge shot. But the collection of shots of golf at its best came when the R&A finally returned to Royal Portrush where the Irishman no one was paying attention to won the British Open in a rout. Besides finally restoring one of the world’s best courses to the Open rota and everything that came with that move, Shane Lowry finally realized potential we’ve seen glimpses of in big events. Yet it’s the way he won — a Saturday 63 and six-stroke victory — that made his win the best week of an incredibly good year.
— Geoff Shackelford
An opportunity long overdue
Climbing the hill on the 18th hole at Augusta National on Saturday afternoon and seeing a Masters-like crowd circling the green to watch two women tip their caps to history was an unforgettable moment in 2019. Jennifer Kupcho and Maria Fassi put on a show that surpassed what most could’ve only dreamed for the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur. Four of the greatest women to ever play the game – Nancy Lopez, Annika Sorenstam, Lorena Ochoa and Se Ri Pak – were on hand to kick off the festivities with ceremonial tee shots, and the 30 amateurs who followed proved it to be an opportunity that was long overdue.
— Beth Ann Nichols
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Calling out the slow-play offenders
Edoardo Molinari is my player of the year. I started paying the Italian a lot more respect when he said he’d had enough of slow play. His actions have forced the European Tour to take action on those who impersonate snails. The 2005 U.S. Amateur winner lost it after taking five and a half hours in the Trophée Hassan II. He highlighted the issue on Twitter and followed it up by posting a photo of a list of Euro Tour players who’ve picked up bad times this year. As a member of the Euro Tour’s tournament committee, the Italian helped instigate plans to speed up the snails. From next season the Euro Tour will do just that. Thank you, Edoardo, or should I say, Bellissimo?
— Alistair Tait
Once in a lifetime trip to Ireland
Watching the long twilight through a bay window overlooking the immaculate grounds of Mount Falcon Estate near Ballina, Ireland, I knew exactly how lucky I was. I had finished my ninth links course in seven days after starting near Dublin and working my way north then west around the top of the island. I played over dunes and along the ocean in wind, rain and even a bit of sunshine – everything one might hope to experience in Ireland. Resting my tired feet at Mount Falcon, I sipped a proper pint of Guinness with a Jameson on the side and recalled to two new friends the greatest parts of my trip – one of my favorite moments of the year. Irish links golf is just different: wild, exposed and exhilarating. A links trip is likely to be the highlight of the year for any golfer.
— Jason Lusk
The honest champion
We’ve become accustomed to seeing golfers imitate the bravado of Tiger Woods — that steely resolve that permits not even a hint of nerves or doubt. Sometimes it might be true, but more often that not it isn’t, especially among players who face an uncomfortable position in a major. On Saturday night at the Open Championship, Shane Lowry had a four stroke lead, the same margin he lost entering the final round of the U.S. Open at Oakmont three years earlier. Lowry didn’t traffic in platitudes or assume an implausible facade. He admitted what fans everywhere knew to be true: “I’m s******g myself.” It was characteristic of Lowry’s unvarnished honesty, evidence that he is a man content in his own skin, a competitor willing to face the possibility of more agony for the chance of dreamed-of victory. The Open Championship could have asked for no more worthy winner.
— Eamon Lynch
Tidy ending to the new golf schedule
Just six weeks after the Patriots won their sixth Super Bowl, golf crowned its first almost-major champion of 2019. Rory McIlroy outlasted the field and TPC Sawgrass with his victory in the Players Championship on – fittingly – St. Patrick’s Day. It appeared the game’s planets would finally align perfectly for the Northern Irishman in 2019, especially with the Open Championship slated for his home turf in July. Fast forward to Aug. 25 at East Lake. A year after playing wingman to Tiger Woods in his 80th PGA Tour victory, McIlroy would close the season the Tour Championship title and bag $15 million by winning the FedEx Cup. In between these bookend victories by the 30-year-old McIlroy, we saw Brook Koepka nearly pull off his own Slam after going runner-up, winner and runner-up in the Masters, PGA Championship and U.S. Open. By the way, Woods also won his fifth Masters.
What made all of this so special is that it occurred neatly and routinely after and before football season. The PGA Tour Powers That Be nailed it with this year’s “Championship” schedule. Every fourth or fifth Sunday, golf fans were guaranteed appointment television during football’s absence. The schedule change was one that screamed common sense, at least as far as TV viewers are concerned. No one was forced to choose between Tiger and a GOAT this September like they did during Woods’ historic victory at the 2018 Tour Championship last Sept. 23. This year, Tiger and the rest of the 2018-19 PGA Tour campaign was long finished before Tom Brady and the NFL’s 100th season got underway.
— Bill Speros
One tournament, one cut, season made
Much was made of the fact that Tiger Woods didn’t play any tournaments between his exhilarating Masters triumph and the PGA Championship, a four-week hiatus that brought into question his preparedness for the second major of the year. Well, Rich Beem didn’t play in a tournament for nine months heading to Bethpage Black, home for the 101st edition of the PGA Championship. Tiger missed the cut. Beemer made it on the number. Go figure. Against odds Einstein would have had difficulty in calculating, Beem took on the ultimate underdog role to advance to the weekend and lit up an appreciative New York crowd that was at the ready to howl at any player’s misfortune. He was the diminutive David vs. the gargantuan Goliath known as the Black Course at Bethpage Black, a course he called the longest he’s ever played. He had no chance of making the cut, for in today’s power game, the Beemer is in desperate need of muscle.
But his power comes from his personality, as he’s a 5-foot-8 walking smile who treats each day as if it’s his last and finds that proverbial silver lining in the darkest of days. Still, he was the longest of longshots, especially knowing most all of the golf he plays these days is with a golf cart and a cooler of beer. He makes his living as a cracking commentator on the PGA Tour for Sky Sports. And he plays one tournament a year. That’s not a misprint. One. And it’s a major. Oh, and he was 48.
“Making the cut is just silly,” he said after his third round. “This game is so unpredictable, it’s a joke.” After getting bruised by Bethpage Black in his 5-over-par 75 in the first round, Beem turned the script on its ear while still doing his day job for Sky Sports. Alongside his caddie, Basil Dalberto, who played college golf for Beem’s father at New Mexico State, Beem became the guy who won the 2002 PGA Championship when he held off Woods when the red shirt was in his prime, which afforded him the opportunity to play the major every year until he was 65. So, he has. Missed 11 cuts since he kept Woods at bay in 2002.
And the trend was continuing when Beem went to the 10th tee in the second round. He was 9 over and well outside the cutline. Then the man with three Tour titles on his resume started pouring in birdie putts, from 18 feet on 13, from 9 feet on 14, from 18 feet again on 16, from 9 feet again on 17, from 17 feet on the 18th to sign for a 69. Boom. Beemer made the cut. Despite Bethpage Black kicking him in the teeth when he needed 82 whacks in the third round, he remained on a sugar high, never lost the bop in his step or the smile on his face as he conversed with the galleries and high-fived the kids. Then he came home with another 69. While he beat just one guy, while Brooks Koepka walked away with the Wanamaker Trophy, Beemer was a headliner in the shadow of Broadway. He earned world ranking points and is now the 1,549th-best player in the world.
That makes him smile once again. He talked the talk that week. And he walked the walk that week. It was something to see.
— Steve DiMeglio
The perfect office view
Waking up at 2 a.m. to watch the British Open on the big screen television in my basement in July was fun and making the pilgrimage to Augusta National is always special. My ears are still ringing from standing behind the 18th green as Tiger Woods won his 15th major, but my favorite golf memory of the year was how I spend June 13th. That day, I sat in the tall grass to the left of the tee box on the seventh hole at Pebble Beach Golf Links. I’d had knee surgery two prior, so it took me a little while to get out there from the clubhouse, but watching players hit pitching wedges and gap wedges to that tiny green as the waves pounded the rocks below and seagull rode updrafts in the cloudy skies above was as special as golf gets.
— David Dusek
A win for the ages
My first trip to Augusta National had a stunning ending – and no, it’s not because I was kicked out for using my cell phone on the hallowed ground. That of course is the golden rule for journalists working at the Masters. No cell phones out on the course or the parking lot. Period. Weeks before I set foot on ANGC’s impeccable grounds, my colleagues warned me about the policy and told me horror stories of what happened to the poor soul who left the press building with his iPhone tucked in his jacket. The volunteers are so good they can sense a vibrating pocket from 100 yards away.
Thankfully, my first Sunday at Augusta had a happier ending. Editors and reporters try to maintain a level of objectivity in that we never cheer in the press box and we don’t wear team colors or mascots when out on assignment. But I confess, we do root (internally) for the story. And I was on site at AGNC to cover the biggest story in golf this year – perhaps this decade or even this century. While leader Francesco Molinari made double bogey when his tee shot found Rae’s Creek and Tiger Woods made par on the 12th, I looked at the writers tapping away next to me and held my breath. There wasn’t much time to sit and watch every shot of the final group because I was fielding messages from the home office in Virginia and adjusting assignments with our writers on site.
Five months later it all seems like a blur because there was so much excitement, so much copy to read as Tiger stormed to his fifth green jacket – and many thought unobtainable – 15th major championship. I still get butterflies thinking about the crazy deadlines and what our Golfweek and USA TODAY staff was able to produce in the hours after Woods’ magical finish. And I’m pretty sure that every other trip I take to Augusta National will pale in comparison.
— Roxanna Scott
