The Nine Biggest Golf Stories of 2021, Ranked

These are the biggest moments in golf from the last 365 days or thereabouts, according to Morning Read's John Hawkins.

Every golf publication runs a list of the year’s biggest stories at some point in December, as if ranking those memorable and newsworthy occasions ties a pretty little bow on all that grabbed our attention over the previous 12 months. Superfluous subjectivity, in other words. More a consignment than an assignment.

Although every article needn’t be one of dire significance, the following nine nominees certainly were. With all due respect to the perils of getting warm and fuzzy, 2021 was truly a banner year. Too bad it had to end, which is more than I can say about this intro.

9. Return of the Red Shirt

Tiger and Charlie Woods hug at the 2021 PNC Championship / Jeremy Reper-USA Today Sports

Not one, but two of them, as Tiger Woods made his first competitive appearance (with son Charlie) since his near-fatal car accident 10 months ago. It wasn’t quite as iconic as Hogan hobbling to Riviera’s first tee at the 1950 Los Angeles Open, but Woods’ presence and performance at last weekend’s PNC Championship was yet another astounding accomplishment by a man who still climbs mountains for a living. Tiger walked like a grandpa, swung like a teenager and almost won the tournament with a 12-year-old as his partner. Every warrior lives to fight another day.

8. The cost of COVID

Would you get vaccinated if somebody paid you $1.67 million to roll up your sleeve? The pandemic had imparted a very modest effect on the PGA Tour until Jon Rahm and his six-shot lead were sent home for testing positive after the third round of the Memorial. Would Rahm have won the overall FedEx Cup title if he’d stuck around to finish the job at Muirfield Village? Some things simply aren’t worth pondering.

7) A rivalry? Really?

Jin Young Ko and Nelly Korda / Darron R. Silva, Allen Eyestone — USA Today Network

Decades have passed since the LPGA last had a legitimate, two-gal battle for overall superiority. Nelly Korda is 23. Jin Young Ko is 26. An American and a South Korean, each with four victories entering the season-finale in November, took their tug-o’-war down to the wire. Both were tied for the lead entering the final round, at which point Ko hit the gas with a closing 63 to cop $1.5 million and cap a career year. Rumors of the LPGA’s demise are greatly exaggerated. The game is in the hands of young brilliance.

6. The Torrey terminator

Jon Rahm at the 2021 U.S. Open / Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports

How come the two best U.S. Opens in the 21st century have been staged at a San Diego municipal course, not some holier-than-thou palace for the privileged? Rahm, the burly Spaniard without an ounce of pretense himself, rebounded from the COVID calamity to claim his first major title in stunning fashion: a birdie-birdie finish with harsh, left-to-right putts from 25 and 18 feet. It validated the notion that Rahm is the world’s best golfer at the moment, and it’s fair to figure that moment might last for a while. The big boy has it all. And then some.

5. The Saudis are coming

What’s invisible but threatening, mysterious and semi-serious, a pie-in-the-sky projection met with universal rejection? Word of a heavily funded challenge to the PGA Tour has been floating around for about two years now. It originated as something called the Premier Golf League — 18 annual events with purses massive enough to make Camp Ponte Vedra’s prize money look like chump change — but nothing substantive has materialized. The Tour, meanwhile, has gone to dramatic lengths to squash its would-be opponent, playing the role of paranoid incumbent by threatening its players with expulsion for jumping ship and creating a $40 million bonus pool for its most popular stars. To this point, there’s a lot of smoke but not a flicker of fire. Which doesn’t mean an inferno won’t start in 2022.

4. My muscles are bigger than yours

One of the best eye-rolls of 2021

The Brawny Brainiac vs. Big Game Brooksie! C’mon everybody, let’s have a Look-See! Professional golf stooped to near-comical levels in the form of a summer-long feud between Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka, sort of like a couple of jocks wrestling to impress the homecoming queen. This spat had its tawdry moments, notably when Koepka cussed out DeChambeau for walking into his camera shot during an TV interview at the PGA Championship. Boys will be boys. And make far too much noise.

3. Ryder rout

Patrick Cantlay plays the third hole during Friday foursomes at the Ryder Cup / Golffile | Scott Halleran

America’s historic triumph (largest margin ever) over an inferior European squad was a long-awaited, desperately needed bolt of optimism for Uncle Sam’s fragile psyche. Not only did the U.S. win by 10 points, it battered the Euros with its youngest and most inexperienced team ever, Every Yank won at least one match. Dustin Johnson went 5-0. Patrick Cantlay and Collin Morikawa failed to lose in four starts apiece. Captain Steve Stricker’s light touch worked wonders with a group that had accumulated 13 major titles despite its youth, and the future suddenly looks very promising. At least until Europe awakens from its afternoon nap.

2. Mickelson-of-a-gun

Phil Mickelson, the oldest man to win a major / David Yeazell-USA Today Sports

Given his illustrious career, advanced age and penchant for pulling off the highly improbable, Philly Mick’s PGA Championship victory was either perfectly fitting or ridiculously wildly beyond belief. A month before his 51st birthday, Mickelson became the oldest major champ ever. This was his sixth Big One, no less a surprise than his stunning conquest of the 2013 British Open but of greater historic value. Lefty cemented his standing as one of the 10 finest golfers of all-time at Kiawah Island. This was his version of Nicklaus at the 1986 Masters or Woods at Augusta National in 2019.

1. The crash heard around the world

Tiger Woods' car after he was involved in a rollover accident in Rancho Palos Verdes on Feb. 23 / Harrison Hill-USA Today

When the man many consider the greatest player ever drives his car off the road without provocation, nearly loses his life and spends three weeks in the hospital after shattering his right leg, nothing else deserves consideration as the year’s biggest story. Woods’ single-car accident in Los Angeles was a head-scratching episode with lots of loose ends lingering amid the madness and sadness. How could something like this happen at 7:30 in the morning? Why were there no skidmarks, no evidence that Woods was even awake as his vehicle roared down a southern California hill at 80 miles per hour? Lots of questions, no need for answers. He’s still alive. Alive and kicking.