It’s that time of the year again when we spend a good chunk of our days wearily pawing at the buttons of the TV remote control, rummaging amid the crumpled, ravaged debris of the selection boxes and generally lolling around on the couch looking like a bellowing walrus trying to haul itself along a shingle beach. Now there’s a vision and a half, eh?
In this pleasant state of post-Christmas torpor, however, we can just about muster enough oomph to embark on a gentle meander through some of the ups, downs, twists and turns of a jam-packed golfing year.
Mugshot of the year
From the green jacket of Augusta to the orange jumpsuit of the Jefferson County jail. Scottie Scheffler’s startling costume change was more eye-opening than one of Liberace’s extravagant sartorial statements.
Amid chaotic scenes ahead of day two of the US PGA Championship at Valhalla, the reigning Masters champion was arrested after trying to drive into the club through heavy traffic caused by an earlier, unrelated accident in which a tournament vendor was tragically killed.
Scheffler was released on bail – all charges were subsequently dropped – and the world No 1 raced back to the course to post a second-round 66.
“I spent some time stretching in a jail cell,” he said of his unique warmup routine. It was the quote of the season.
Fickle fortunes of the year
While Scheffler was dominating the men’s game – he won four titles in five starts early on in the campaign – Nelly Korda accelerated out of the traps on the LPGA Tour with such ferocity, she was just about wreathed in plumes of burning rubber reek as she ambled down the fairways.
Nelly the elegant won six titles in seven events – five of them came in a row – but those meddling golfing gods don’t like all this sustained excellence, do they?
They wreaked a terrible vengeance on Korda during the opening round of the US Women’s Open as she stumbled to a ruinous 10 on the par-3 12th en route to an 80. She missed the cut as her rousing run hit the wall.
Team of the year
GB&I hadn’t won the Curtis Cup since 2016 and in that time, they had suffered some dreadful trouncings in the biennial tussle with the USA.
The 17-3 defeat at Quaker Ridge in 2018 and the 15 ½ - 4 ½ reversal at Merion in 2022, for instance, were so painful, even the record books were left nursing cuts and bruises.
Catriona Matthew’s calm, diligent and inspired captaincy soothed those wounds, though, as GB&I earned a thrilling 10 ½ - 9 ½ win at Sunningdale.
It was a hat-trick of captaincy crowns for Matthew following back-to-back successes leading Europe in the Solheim Cup.
If the great Scot can guide GB&I to only a second Curtis Cup victory on American soil in 2026, they’ll erect a golden statue of her on top of the Royal & Ancient clubhouse.
Major moment of the year
The nail-nibbling, hands-over-the-eyes finale to the US Open at Pinehurst was such an edge of the seat epic, this correspondent had to get an upholsterer in to repair the shredded fringes of said bloomin' seat.
It seemed that Rory McIlroy would finally end his 10-year major drought as he moved two shots clear with just five to play. In the growing tumult, though, McIlroy stumbled home with a wretched run-in.
That opened the door for a slightly ragged Bryson DeChambeau, who conjured a raking up-and-down for the ages from the bunker on the 18th to pinch the title.
The sight of McIlroy’s shell-shocked, ashen face in the recording hut was one of the images of the year. It was even more haunting than Scheffler’s police mugshot.
Scot of the year
They often say that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. That’s not the case, of course, if your neighbour’s lawn has been decimated by pythium blight.
For Robert MacIntyre, the green grasses of the PGA Tour had left him feeling decidedly blue as he struggled to adapt to a new and lonely way of life away for the auld haunts of his cherished Oban home.
All that changed, of course, when he got faither, Dougie, out to caddie for him at the Canadian Open in June. And promptly won it.
It was MacIntyre’s maiden win on the toughest tour in the world and the one-off, dad and son alliance provided one of the most heartwarming stories of the season.
The fairytale would continue at the Renaissance in July when MacIntyre won the Scottish Open.
During a pulsating final round, he got a fortuitous drop from a sprinkler on the 16th and clattered a rip-roaring 6-iron approach to within six-feet to set up the most unlikely eagle.
A birdie putt of 20-feet on the last, meanwhile, was just about sooked into the hole by the collective will of East Lothian as MacIntyre edged out Adam Scott by a stroke.
It was another momentous moment in a year full of too many to mention.
You can get back to the couch now.
