How were your holidays? Tranquil? Restful? Glad to hear it. After a tumultuous year in golf, you deserved a respite. But don’t get too relaxed because the calendar is about to flip. And if you thought 2022 was wild, think on this: 2023 stands to be wilder still. Here are 10 potential sources of tension — and excitement — in the year ahead.
1. Major confrontations
In 2022, the PGA Tour-LIV battle was waged largely at a distance through verbal volleys, sanctions and legal filings. This year holds the promise of turf wars fought in the flesh, with soldiers from each side meeting face to face on some of the game’s most storied grounds. Augusta’s recent announcement that LIV players will not be banned from the Masters raises the prospect of titillating April matchups. Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson would be must-see TV with a rich subtext. Ditto. Patrick Reed and Jordan Spieth. We could go on. But you get the point. With Augusta setting precedent, it seems like a safe bet the other majors will take a similar stance toward LIV players, clearing the way for contests more compelling than a war of words.
2. A new-look Amen Corner
In the age of modern bombing, it no longer takes a miracle to make it through the final leg of Amen Corner. Most guys can reach the 13th at Augusta with driver, mid-iron, max. At least, they could. The fabled par-5 will have a new back tee in 2023, a some-40-yard extension aimed at restoring the risk-reward drama to a historic pivot point on the course. They say the Masters doesn’t start until the back nine on Sunday. This year, the tournament might end for some unlucky contender on the freshly lengthened 13th. We’ll be watching from the edge of our seats.
3. More world-ranking rancor
Toward the end of 2022, Phil Mickelson dropped out of the top 200 in the Official World Golf Ranking, his lowest OWGR standing in more than three decades. As a practical matter, that might not mean much to Mickelson, who, for now, doesn’t need those points for access to the majors. But other LIVers don’t enjoy that luxury, making Mickelson’s plunge a reminder of a larger issue in the ongoing fight over pro golf’s future. LIV Golf applied for OWGR recognition last summer. It wants world-ranking points. It needs world-ranking points. Whether it will get those points is TBD. The OWGR has been known to take its time with such decisions. But this hot topic can be back-burnered only for so long. The year ahead stands to bring some clarity to a crucial, polarizing question, with plenty of sound and fury along the way.
4. The women take on Pebble
The women’s game deserves a bigger spotlight, and no stage shines brighter than Pebble Beach, where the U.S. Women’s Open will be staged for the first time in the 77-year history of the event.
5. A close-up for two classics
An extra look at Pebble won’t be the only catnip for architecture nerds. The coming year will also bring the first-ever U.S. Open to Los Angeles Country Club (North), a vaunted venue that ranks 10th on GOLF’s roster of Top 100 Courses in the U.S. Yet another bonus is that storied Oak Hill, in New York, will return to view, hosting its first major (the PGA Championship) since a sparkling 2020 restoration.
6. Mamma mia! Golf’s best rivalry resumes
Not all roads lead to Rome. But the Ryder Cup is headed to the outskirts of the ancient city, where Marco Simone Golf & Country Club will stage the first-ever playing of the event in Italy. If the prospect of a Constantino Rocca sighting doesn’t get you excited, an already-heated battle, unfolding in a country filled with sporting passion, ought to do the trick.
7. Two more for the record books?
In the modern era, only five players (Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods) have captured all four majors to complete the career slam. In 2023, not one but two stars have a chance to add their names to that rarefied roster. Jordan Spieth needs the PGA Championship. Rory McIlroy is missing the Masters. That both will ride into the season on resurgent games raises our hopes of seeing history made.
8. Elevated events
More money alone does not make golf more interesting. But it does attract big names. With the rollout of a new schedule, rejiggered to highlight a series of “elevated” events with pumped-up purses, the game’s A-listers will come together more often. Think of it as trickle-down economics. The richest golfers will keep getting richer, but at least that will come with payoffs for fans.
9. Will the feds crack down?
This past summer, word broke that the Department of Justice had launched an antitrust investigation into the PGA Tour and its actions in response to LIV, an inquiry that is also looking into the heavy-hitting likes of Augusta National and the United States Golf Association. These kinds of probes take time. But 2023 could be the year we learn whether the game’s most powerful institutions have fallen afoul of the most powerful prosecutors in the land.
10. That lingering lawsuit
As 2022 ground on, a growing chorus of voices, including Rory McIlroy’s, began urging reconciliation between the PGA Tour and LIV. Self-appointed legal experts on social media have taken up a similar refrain. But according to actual legal experts, antitrust laws don’t make such dealings easy. “For competitors to sit down and try to reach a deal is fraught, and for good reason,” says Josh Davis, a professor at the University of California, Hastings College of Law, and a leading scholar on antitrust procedure. “The tendency is to arrive at a compromise that is good for everyone except consumers and society at large. Antitrust laws rightly protect against that.” In lieu of a detente, the greater likelihood is that LIV’s antitrust complaint will head to trial this year, which would be a barn burner. The other option is that LIV drops the suit, which would be big news, too.
