Despite only being July, golf’s major season is now over and golfing fans all over the world now have nine long months to wait until the 2025 Masters rolls around.
This year the four majors were dominated by American players, as for the first time since 1982 all four of golf’s major honours were won by players who were born Stateside.
Scottie Scheffler was the first major winner of the season as he got his hands on a second green jacket and cemented his position as the best player on the planet.
Xander Schauffele then finally landed the major his talents clearly deserved when winning a low scoring PGA Championship by one stroke from Bryson DeChambeau.
DeChambeau was able to get over his heartbreak from the PGA as he managed to outlast the rest of the field at a brutally tough U.S Open.
As is now tradition, the majors would conclude with the Open. Held at the picturesque setting of Royal Troon, Schauffele became the first man since Rory McIlroy back in 2014 to capture both the PGA Championship and Open in the same year.
With so much brilliant golf to look back on, here is our review of those who will look back on the past few months with fondness and those who will head back to the drawing board as they attempt to become major winners next year.
The 2024 Major Season: The Positives
Xander Schauffele
Once regarded as the nearly man of professional golf, Xander Schauffele has now risen into a giant figure of the game thanks to his two major victories this season.
Nobody could dispute whether Schauffele had the talent to land the sport’s biggest prizes, but there were questions as to whether he had the mental fortitude to get over the line.
The start of 2024 did little to quell those thoughts as he blew winning positions in both the Players Championship and Wells Fargo.
Clearly recognising the need to do something different, the Californian was able to wrong those rights when producing a brilliant final round to win the PGA Championship by one stroke from Bryson DeChambeau.
Posting the lowest ever winning score at a major, since finally landing his first major title, Schauffele has looked a different beast.
Another top ten would follow at the U.S Open before he would grind out a stunning victory at the Open.
Now firmly recognised as one of the best players in the game, Schauffele looks set to be a player in the majors for years to come and very few would bet against him adding more titles to the two he has captured this year.
Possessing all of the traits a great champion needs, it has taken a while but Schauffele is quickly on his way to becoming one of the modern day greats.
Scottie Scheffler
It’s hard to be disappointed after you have won six titles through the first six months of the season, but Scottie Scheffler may have left British shores with a slight twinge of regret as to how his major year turned out.
The clear winner of the Masters, a second career major, is the least that Scheffler’s dominance this year deserved and his latest Masters win outlined his credentials as the best player in the professional game.
However with both of his two career major successes coming within the hallowed settings of Augusta, Scheffler would have liked the opportunity to show the world that he can win the biggest tournaments elsewhere.
His PGA Championship result can be excused due to his bizarre arrest ahead of the second round, but he would have liked to have been closer at both the U.S Open and Open.
A year where a major has been won can never be sniffed at. The world number one has certainly deserved all of the praise that has come his way, but to be considered a great, a path that Scheffler is certainly on, you need to win majors on all different kinds of courses and next year you can be assured that the Texan will want to grow his burgeoning legacy even further.
Bryson DeChambeau
Once a hugely polarising figure in the men’s professional game, DeChambeau has turned into a force this year and has been one of the best players across the majors.
A top ten finish at the Masters was backed up with a runner up effort at the PGA Championship before he finally got his head in front at the U.S Open.
Often thought of as a bomber of the ball, the one standout feature of his play this year was his deftness on and around the greens and it was his short game that propelled him to a second major title at Pinehurst.
Leading by one and needing a par to clinch victory, DeChambeau produced one of the shots of the year as he carried his third shot from the bunker over seventy yards and saw his ball come to a halting stop just feet from the hole.
With the crowd cheering his name, DeChambeau made no mistake with his short putt and sent his adoring crowd into raptures.
Having rebuilt his image through his extensive YouTube work, DeChambeau’s slightly goofy nature has made him hugely endearing to galleries and fans all over the world. Now one of the biggest commodities in the sport, the world will be watching to see if he can add to his major haul next season.
Courses Start to Bite Back
It is no secret that both the LIV and PGA Tours are struggling. With both tours consuming each other, what we have seen in all four majors has differed vastly from the weekly fare that both tours now regularly serve up.
With wide open fairways, accessible greens and rough that isn’t too penal, watching the professional game can often feel like Groundhog Day as the world’s best consistently rip and take courses apart.
However this year, the courses at the majors started to bite back. Augusta will always present a unique challenge and although the set up at Valhalla was all sorts of wrong, Pinehurst and Royal Troon offered as stern a test as the watching public could have asked for.
With its slick greens, numerous run off areas and dangerous waste areas, this year’s U.S Open held at Pinehurst was gripping from start to finish. Presenting a beast of a challenge, only eight of the 156 man field finished under par.
As the professionals left Pinehurst battered and bruised, there would be no let up at Royal Troon as the wild Scottish weather turned the Open into an almighty grind where only nine of the starting field were able to post numbers in the red.
Majors should be hard to win and over recent years the game seems to have lost sight of that. This year the courses at Augusta, Pinehurst and Troon have all represented a significant step up from the norm and the golfing public have loved it.
The majors should always stand alone and this year that has certainly been the case. Let’s hope that Oakmont, Port Rush and Quail Hollow can all follow suit next year.
The 2024 Major Season: The Negatives
A Bleak Outlook For European Golf
For the first time since 1982 all four of golf’s major prizes have headed back stateside and that will be a blow for those with European afflictions.
European golf has long been the main rival of the PGA Tour and European golf is clearly in good heart thanks to their 2023 Ryder Cup victory.
In all four majors, players hailing from the continent have come close. Ludvig Aberg finished as the runner up at the Masters, Viktor Hovland and Thomas Detry finished in a tie for third at the PGA, Rory McIlroy finished a narrow second at the U.S Open, whilst Justin Rose finished as Xander Schauffele’s nearest challenger at the Open.
Whilst European players certainly came close to lifting the sports biggest prizes, with a Ryder Cup due to be held in 2025, players from Europe will hope to remind the watching world that they are a serious force ahead of the 2025 event.
Rory McIlroy
Whilst every player dreams of major glory, it would be foolish to suggest that a second place finish shouldn’t be celebrated, however another year has come and gone and Rory McIlroy’s long wait for a fifth career major has now stretched to 11 years.
Whilst the Northern Irishman never got going at the Masters, PGA or Open, it was the U.S Open that will hurt the most.
Leading by two shots with just five holes to play, McIlroy’s long wait for glory was seemingly almost at an end, but then the pressure kicked in.
Handing away the initiative with a missed putt from inside two feet, any chance he had was gone when he missed another tricky short putt on the 18th.
Clearly rocked by this latest near miss, McIlroy decided to take some time away from the game to get over this latest disappointment. The demons were still clearly visible as he barely got out of the blocks at the Open.
Having been a consistent force at the top of the game for the best part of a decade, it seems unbelievable that a man of his talents has gone so long without winning one of the game’s biggest prizes.
With time still on his side, McIlroy will once again head into 2025 hoping to end his barren spell and resume his path to golfing greatness.
In Battle Between PGA and LIV the PGA Emerge Victorious
Although the atmosphere surrounding the PGA and LIV tours has greatly improved, it’s no secret that each tour will hope to end the year with more major wins than the other.
This year the bragging rights belong to the PGA Tour with Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele winning three of the four majors available. Bryson DeChambeau’s victory at the U.S Open was LIV’s only major success of the year.
Whilst some may disregard it as important, the truth of the matter is that the LIV Tour is still to move the needle of professional golf. Still without a major TV deal, there are occasions where LIV breaks through to the sporting mainstream but these occasions are still rare.
Where they can shine and represent the brand at its best is at the majors. As they try to wrestle away the spotlight, too few of their stars have been able to shine when the lights have been at their brightest.
Although Jon Rahm finished inside the top ten at the Open, that was his best performance at a major this season by a mile. Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Cam Smith were all merely footnotes throughout the year and LIV officials will hope this trio can bounce back to some sort of form next year.
LIV isn’t going anywhere, but in order to accelerate its growth outside of golfing circles, the more major winners they can house the better. 2024 was a disappointment, they will hope to come out on top as battle resumes in 2025.
What Next for Tiger?
For the first time since suffering severe leg injuries Tiger Woods was able to tee it up at all four majors.
Whilst winning a major now seems beyond the fifteen time major winner, Woods would still harbour hopes of competing for the game’s biggest prizes, but after some inconsistent golf it might be a case of going back to the drawing board.
Sneaking through to the weekend of the Masters on the number, he would go onto miss the cuts at the PGA, U.S Open and Open.
Jack Hartman
A keen golfer and huge fan of the game, Jack has been covering golf for the last five years. Bringing you all the latest coverage and news from the PGA, LIV, LPGA and DP World Tours, never before has golf been so popular and Jack can’t wait to bring all the excitement to his readers.
