10 things you forgot actually happened in golf in 2022
Among the wilder moments of the year were Jordan Spieth's cliff shot, a TPC Scottsdale celebration and a Sergio Garcia eruption.
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A new tour. An old tour that made multiple changes in response. Five women’s major winners. Four on the men’s side. Two Matches, including one with four football players. One Presidents Cup.
Whew.
That’s a lot, right? And that’s just the big stuff. This year also brought us Jordan Spieth versus a cliff. And Bryson DeChambeau versus a rope. And a Players Championship that gave us all four seasons. And a WM Phoenix Open that gave us a beer shower.
So here, then, are 10 things you forgot actually happened in golf in 2022.
Jordan Spieth and the cliff
WATCH: Jordan Spieth avoids diving off 70-foot cliff (!) on daredevil shot
You may remember this one, though it happened back in early February, at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. On the 8th hole during the third round, Spieth’s tee shot came to rest just a couple feet from about a 70-foot fall off a rocky cliff. But he did not drop on stroke two, and yes, that can be interpreted in different ways.
Spieth hit.
He finished with a baseball-like uppercut, then almost immediately took eight fast steps backward.
The shot, from 162 yards out, finished on line with the flag, but over the green.
“He survived,” analyst Ian Baker-Finch said on the CBS broadcast at the time.
“He is alive,” analyst Nick Faldo said.
“Take a deep breath,” Baker-Finch said.
Afterward, with about two or so hours to process it all, Spieth wasn’t quite sure what to make of his latest — and perhaps greatest (?) — daredevil shot in a long line of them.
“Yeah, I asked Colt, I was like, Colt, you know, I was the one hitting it, so, I mean, you looked at it, was it, was I being dramatic?” Spieth said of Colt Knost, who, while working as an analyst for CBS, was near the shot. “He’s like — and he’ll always call me dramatic — and he was like, no. He’s like, I don’t know what you were thinking.
“And, I mean, I don’t know, just thinking about it now, it’s like kind of hard, it’s weird. It’s like, because there’s a story of the guys that drove off that cliff so, when they used to allow carts here. So I, I was thinking about that obviously walking up.
“So, not worth it, to be honest, but I guess I just, it was a weird situation. It was like, well, if I can hit it then just hit it.”
Wild.
Mito Pereira and the 18th at Southern Hills
This one hurt to watch. In May, Mito Pereira led the PGA Championship by one shot with one hole to play. After the 72nd at Southern Hills, Pereira finished in a tie for third.
Mito Pereira’s heartbreaking PGA finish doesn’t tell the full story
In between, he hit his drive into a creek on the right side of the hole, took a drop, hit over the green, hit a chip short and hit two putts. A double-bogey six. And Justin Thomas won in a playoff over Will Zalatoris.
Afterward, Pereira admirably answered questions.
“I wish I could do it again,” he said.
The WM Phoenix Open: takes, holes-in-one, tops off and a breakthrough
What didn’t the WM Phoenix Open have?
There was Charley Hoffman, who, in an Instagram post, ripped the PGA Tour, its rules officials and the USGA, and referenced then-proposed rival tours, after he was forced to take two penalty strokes after a drive into the water on the 13th hole at TPC Scottsdale.
There were two holes-in-one on the famed stadium-seating 16th, the first coming from Sam Ryder during the third round, and the second from Carlos Ortiz the next day. Good stuff, for sure. But that wasn’t the news here. After Ryder’s, the some 20,000 fans around the hole erupted, and liquor rained down, to the point where it took several minutes to clean everything up. You could argue it had never been seen before on a golf course — until the next day, though the party after Ortiz’s ace was slightly tamer.
There was more.
A few groups after Ortiz on 16, on a plan hatched on Twitter the night before, Harry Higgs and Joel Dahmen both went tops-off after Higgs’ par, with Higgs lifting his shirt over his head, and Dahmen taking off his polo completely.
Oh, and Scottie Scheffler won his first tournament — after co-leader Sahith Theegala’s unlucky water ball led to a bogey on 17 — marking Scheffler’s first of four wins on the year.
The teen who became No. 1
Lydia Ko will begin 2023 as World No. 1, and Nelly Korda No. 2. But for a few weeks starting in late October, 19-year-old Atthaya Thitikul sat on the throne, becoming only the second teenager (following Ko) to achieve the honor.
In early November, she did a Q&A with GOLF’s Zephyr Melton, and this exchange tells you all you need to know about the star.
ZM: How does it feel knowing you’re the best player in the women’s game?
AT: It’s an amazing feeling and a really cool experience. To be in my first year on the LPGA Tour and become No. 1 in the world is really amazing. But at the same time, I feel like I’m not there yet to be called the ‘best.’ I don’t have as much experience as some of the other top-ranked players have. But still, it’s a cool experience for me.
Sergio Garcia and the outburst
This one featured a rules infraction. And a correction. And a goodbye.
At the Wells Fargo Championship in early May, Sergio Garcia hit a tee shot left, over a creek, and into a grassy area. He looked for his ball for three minutes, the time allotted by the rules. Three minutes passed. The official let him know. Then Garcia had his own words.
‘Absolute bulls–t’: Sergio Garcia berates official during controversial ruling
The rules official clarified his ruling, and Garcia, swatting flies away from his face, said, “So, you’re saying it took too long?”
Then he turned away and offered these words: “I can’t wait to leave this Tour.” Presumably that was an indication that Garcia was intending to join the Saudi-backed LIV Golf series, which started off June 9 in London. He would.
One question to Garcia was why his search time included the effort to cross the water. He was right.
That night, the Tour issued this statement:
“Official statement from the PGA Tour
“Clarification regarding Sergio Garcia ruling, following full review of video by Steve Rintoul
“May 5, 2022 — Wells Fargo Championship
“On the 10th hole of Thursday’s first round of the Wells Fargo Championship, Sergio Garcia drove his ball left into a red penalty area. As Garcia entered the penalty area, a referee located on the 10th hole started a search time clock, as it appeared a search for the golf ball had begun. Unbeknownst to the referee, the players in the group were told by a TV spotter that the ball was on the far side of the creek, and at that point, Garcia spent a considerable amount of time trying to access the other side of the creek. This was not in clear view of the referee due to other players in the group playing, so the time clock was still running on the search, when it should have been paused. When the ball was found by Garcia, the referee’s three-minute search time had expired, and Garcia was informed the ball was treated as lost. Garcia operated under Rule 17.1d (2) using back-on-the-line relief from a red penalty area. Garcia made 5 (par) on the hole.
“Subsequently, the Rules Committee reviewed video from the situation after the ruling and discovered the inadvertent error by the referee who was not aware the player was not searching for the ball on the other side of the creek. To clarify, the time spent by Garcia trying to access the other side of the creek should have delayed the start of the search time clock, and the ball would have still been “in play” if not for that error. Garcia was informed of the developments following his round. Under the Rules of Golf, Garcia’s score does not change despite this clarification.”
And Garcia left the PGA Tour a month later.
The Players Championship and the weather
How much did bad-weather draw cost pros at Players? The gap is staggering.
The Players Championship was played in mid-March, but TPC Sawgrass saw hints of winter, spring, summer and fall.
Play was delayed twice on Thursday due to storms. Friday saw only a few hours of golf. Saturday brought winds up to 40 mph. On Monday, the tournament — finally — ended. But the damage was done. When the players in the morning wave of the first round eventually put golf balls in the air on Thursday afternoon, they experienced some of the best scoring conditions Sawgrass has ever seen — little wind and soft greens, not to mention the ability to use lift, clean and place on golf balls to account for the mud buildup. And, for the most part, these pros ducked Friday’s rain and Saturday’s 40 mph-plus winds.
But that was just half the field.
And those players were wrecked, no more so than on Saturday. And especially so on the famed island-green 17th.
When play started on Saturday, four straight players hit into the water.
“Oh, boy, buckle your seat belts,” analyst Mark Wilson said on the PGA Tour Live broadcast.
Indeed.
Lexi Thompson and a collapse
Like Pereira’s sequence at the PGA, this one was painful, too. Lexi Thompson led by two with three holes to play at the KPMG Women’s PGA. And she finished a stroke behind winner In Gee Chun. In between?
In Gee Chun takes advantage of Lexi Thompson’s meltdown, wins KPMG Women’s PGA
On 16, Thompson bogeyed, and Chun parred.
On 17, Thompson three-putted from 20 feet and bogeyed, and Chun parred.
On 18, Thompson missed a 12-footer for birdie, and Chun tapped in for par.
And Thompson remained at just one major. The PGA collapse followed near-misses at the 2017 Chevron and the 2021 U.S. Open.
Will Zalatoris and the stones
This one was nearly disastrous. In mid-August, Will Zalatoris won his first Tour event, in a playoff with Sepp Straka at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. But golf is hard.
Here’s what we wrote the day of:
Will Zalatoris explains why he rejected hero rock-shot in FedEx playoff
— On the 450-yard, par-4 18th during regulation, we’ll call what went down here The Shout. Tied with Straka at 15-under, Zalatoris hit his third shot to 10 feet, dropped the putt for par, then yelled: “What are they going to say now?!?,” which Steph Curry asked after his Golden State Warriors won last season’s NBA title. Zalatoris’ version was telling. If there’s been a criticism of the 25-year-old’s game, it’s been his putting, and he has apparently heard, then everyone heard him.
— Straka, in the group behind, also parred, and they moved to the first hole of the playoff, back on 18. We’ll label this Routine, only because little else was over this stretch. Both players were on the green in two, both two-putted, both made par. Back to 18 again for the second hole of the playoff.
— Chaos! On the second hole of the playoff, Zalatoris hit his tee shot right, it hit the cart path, his ball bounced up into a tree, and it settled feet from the boundary fence — which was followed by Straka’s tee shot, which went left, into the penalty area and feet from water. Each player then made a pair of wise decisions and putts. Zalatoris elected to hit a short wedge out instead of trying to run his ball up to the green that was guarded by the water on the left; Straka, seeing that, took a penalty drop and hit to 6 feet from 150 yards out. On the putts, Zalatoris made a left-to-right 10-footer after a pitch on, and Straka matched the par. Whew.
— CHAOS! All caps. On the third hole of the playoff, on the short, 151-yard, par-3 11th, Zalatoris hit an iron right, the ball dribbled along the bricks that divide the green from water — and it nestled up against a layer of sod while somehow not getting wet. Straka wasn’t as lucky; his tee shot went in the same direction and splashed. From there, Straka hit into the bunker over the green after taking his drop in the drop zone, he hit on with his fourth shot — and Zalatoris, after a long look at his lie, picked his ball up, also went back to the drop and hit to 7 feet.
Did Zalatoris think about hitting from the rocks? The heroic rock shot was tempting, given he was just 20 feet from the hole. But if he attempted the shot and failed, Zalatoris risked bouncing it off the grass lip and back into the water, leading to double bogey or worse.
His caddie of just one week, Joel Stock, convinced him to take a drop.
“Joel told me about three times, ‘Hey, Sepp’s got four feet for [double-bogey] 5, go back, go back,’”
And he did. And he won.
Bryson DeChambeau and the rope
Bryson DeChambeau shaken after bizarre gallery-rope incident
Bryson DeChambeau himself would probably rather forget this one. But in September, at LIV Golf’s Chicago Invitational, he hit his tee shot to the right of the fairway, nearly holed out on stroke two and then tried to walk under the gallery rope.
Instead, his face walked through it.
LIV broadcaster David Feherty put the moment in words only Feherty can (get away with).
“Off with his head!” Feherty exclaimed during the slow-motion replay on the YouTube broadcast.
Cameron Smith and the 34-under
In January, at the Tournament of Champions, Cam Smith won with a whopping 34-under total.
And one of the most bizarre years in golf began.
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