2024 Year in Review - Part Two

July through December

Dear Subscriber:

We carry on from Part One of the 2024 Year in Review with the remainder of the year rutted in the fatuous autogamy of the world of the professional golf tours.

J U L Y

Tag Galyean, The Postage Stamp, Royal Troon, venue for the 2024 Open Championship

1st - Mark Darbon is appointed Chief Executive of The R&A and Secretary of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews. Martin Slumbers to retire at year’s end.

2nd - Sergio Garcia, 44, his group having been put on the clock with ten other groups for slow play during Open Championship qualifying at West Lancashire G.C., addresses two R&A Rules officials sarcastically and loudly while walking down the fairway, “You’re always right, we’re always wrong.”

More often than not, that is true.

3rd - Mr. Woods and Justin Timberlake are given approval by the Fife Council to convert a St. Andrews movie theater into a sports bar that will be named T-Squared Social. In addition to a bar, there will be golf simulators, duckpin bowling, and darts. More than 10,000 opposition petition signatures are collected but fail to stop the project approval.

Justin Timberlake and Tiger Woods

• British Columbia police and paramedics are called to the scene of a golf course brawl, perhaps the weekend before this date, as reported by Coleman Bentley for Golf Digest:

We pick up the plot about midway through the fight. Two golfers lie half-conscious near [a] red cart while another is being held down by a pair of adversaries in the center of the scrum. The brawl - which allegedly began after one group kept repeatedly hitting into the other - appears to be fizzling … Out of nowhere a golfer in a blue polo attempts a flying kick to the head, but because he isn’t Neo and this ain’t the Matrix, he ends up flat on [his] back getting punched in the face. … No one was taken to the hospital.

8th - Keegan Bradley is named the 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup captain.

• Mr. Mickelson, when asked if he feels he is missing out on PGA Tour events, comments, “Yeah man, I’m really bummed that I can’t play in the ****ing John Deere Classic this week. I always dreamed of playing in that as a kid.”

10th - A Florida arbitrator decides that Jack Nicklaus can return to designing golf courses again after being restricted in a dispute between Mr. Nicklaus and Nicklaus Companies LLC. The arbitrator rules that Mr. Nicklaus is no longer bound by a non-compete clause that expired nearly two years before.

16th - In relentless detail, Mr. Rahm describes his “foot finger” problems that caused him to withdraw from the U.S. Open before it began. When the word abscess is called forth, it seems we are supposed to sit up and pay attention.

• Just prior to the Open Championship, Colin Montgomerie suggests that Mr. Woods is past his prime and should consider retiring, to which Mr. Woods replies:

As a past [Open] champion, I’m exempt until I’m 60. Colin’s not. He’s not a past champion, so he’s not exempt. So he doesn’t get the opportunity to make that decision. I do. … When I get to his age, I still get to make that decision, where he doesn’t.

17th - Martin Slumbers, retiring CEO of the The R&A, says Open qualifying, as opposed to pure exemptions, will be the way for LIV members to earn spots in the Open field.

18th - Daniel Brown, ranked 272nd in the world, leads the first round of the Open Championship posting a 65.

20th - Mr. Norman, fully clothed again, attends the Open wearing an R&A guest badge as a past champion.

21st - Mr. Schauffele wins the Open at 9-under (275); two strokes better than Justin Rose. It is his second dominating major championship victory of the year.

22nd - Mr. Bradley selects Webb Simpson, the 2012 U.S. Open champion, to be his first vice captain.

27th - Shane Lowry and Sarah Lavin are the Irish flag co-bearers for the Olympic Games opening ceremony.