Golf at a glance – Season review 2021
Ciaran Currie
With Steve Stricker’s American team coming out victorious after a dominant display against a disappointing European side at the most recent Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits, Wisconsin, we can officially call an end to another golfing year.
The most recent season has turned out to be one like no other, mainly due to the return of crowds lining the fairways, showing us exactly what we were missing from the previous season’s COVID affected events.
Hideki Matsuyama and Phil Mickelson were the big major winners this year, toasting success in The Masters and PGA Championship respectively.
As a result of the pandemic, this year there were a total of six men’s majors, as opposed to the regular four, with the addition of both the Ryder Cup and Solheim Cup, as well as the second iteration of golf at the Olympics in modern times. The golfing calendar was packed and left us with world-class golf to consume almost every week.
Closer to home, the situation was very similar; with the ISPS Handa World Invitational’s elevation to tri-sanctioned European, Ladies European, and Ladies PGA tour status, the Irish golf fan didn’t have far to travel to watch world-class golf and history-defining moments.
The progressive event hosted at Galgorm and Massereene by Niall Horan’s Modest Golf management company provided a watershed moment for golf in the Northern Hemisphere. It saw fields of both men and women compete on the same courses, for the same prize funds, at the same time. The successful week of golf saw Daniel Gavins and Pajaree Anannarukarn both grab their maiden tour victory on their respective tours.
Elsewhere in the world of women’s golf, colossal crowds of over 130,000 spectators came through the gates of the Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio, to watch Europe come away victorious in the Solheim Cup, breaking attendance records and proving that a tournament that many were billing as a warm-up to the men’s Ryder Cup at the end of September, can undoubtedly stand out as a main event all on its own.
This month’s biggest story was County Cavan native Leona Maguire announcing herself on the Solheim Cup and Global golfing stage by going undefeated across all five of the matches she was involved in. The 26-year-old will without doubt be very closely followed over the next few years by golf fans on these shores, as it would seem that she has the potential to develop into another Irish golf superstar.
Taking a look at the men’s side of the game, Patrick Cantlay came out as the winner of the PGA Tour’s FedEx cup following his win at the Tour Championship at the start of September, narrowly getting the better of Spanish favourite and U.S. Open champion Jon Rahm.
The first major of the year was won at The Masters by Hideki Matsuyama, who made history by becoming the first-ever male player from Japan to win a major. History was also written at the PGA Championship in May, as Phil Mickelson proved his age wasn’t an obstacle as the 50-year-old became the oldest major winner in the history of the game.
Xander Schauffele and Nelly Korda both clinched gold medals in golf at this year’s Tokyo Olympics
The return of The Open was a highly anticipated affair, after it had been postponed in 2020 due to the pandemic. Unfortunately, Irishman Shane Lowry couldn’t replicate his heroics at Portrush in 2019 to make a successful defence of his title at Royal St. Georges in Kent this year, as American Collin Morikawa grabbed the victory with a two-shot margin and lifted the claret jug to become the champion golfer of the year and a two-time major winner.
Further drama ensued at the Kasumigaseki Country Club in Japan, as some of the world’s best lined up for a shot at only the second set of Olympic medals since the sport was brought back to the games.
The men’s medals were a hard-fought affair as a seven-man playoff was needed to find a bronze medalist, which eventually went to C.T. Pan of Chinese Taipei. The silver and gold were more clear cut, with Rory Sabbatini grabbing the silver for Slovakia (despite only gaining his Slovakian citizenship in 2019) and Xander Schauffele carding a score of 18 under par to secure the gold.
In the women’s tournament, Nelly Korda of the U.S. survived a late push up the leader board from her opponents to take home the gold. At the same time, Japanese native Mone Inami beat New Zealander Lydia Ko in a playoff for silver, with the latter picking up a bronze medal.
Glancing into the future and we have a lot to look forward to, especially here in Ireland, as the world invitational competition mentioned above, has been deemed such a success that it has been extended into the coming years, bringing more top-tier tour golf to our shores.
Further south, many will be looking forward to the J.P. McManus Pro-Am at Adare Manor, which, having been delayed twice due to the pandemic, will finally bring the world’s best golfers and some of Hollywood’s A-Listers to Ireland for a couple of days of less competitive golf in July.
Finally, with the return of The Open to Portrush in 2025 and the arrival of the Ryder Cup to Adare Manor in 2027, Ireland is assured of hosting some of the biggest events on the golfing calendar over the next decade.
Ciaran Currie is a sports reporter for The Scoop and an International Business and Spanish student at Queen’s University Belfast.