When, on Friday afternoon, ESPN released a short clip of Tiger Woods hitting into an enormous screen, it was a reminder of what’s to come in 2025. Woods will be back to play more tournament golf (we think). The TGL season will kick off, too (we’re pretty sure). The PGA Tour season will launch in Hawaii (we’re more confident on this one). And we’ll be ready to dive all the way in.
But Woods’ appearance was also a reminder that there’s a little toothpaste left in the golfing tube for 2024. Woods skipped last week’s Hero World Challenge, citing his lack of readiness to play (and walk) 72 holes against the best in the world. But this week he’ll be teeing it up at the PNC Championship in Orlando with his son, Charlie, giving us our first look at Woods’ game since the Open Championship in July.
But what else is golf squeezing in before the New Year strikes? Here are five golf things to watch before the year’s out, starting with Tiger and getting progressively more obscure from there.
1. The PNC Championship
I say this earnestly: the day before the PNC Championship is some of the best random non-tournament programming that pro golf has all year. The Golf Channel team will be pinging around the course, picking up deilghtful bits of gold from legends and their kids, each put at ease by the presence of the other. Just last year we had Lee Trevino talking about his daily routine and Padraig Harrington deep-diving parenting philosophy within the span of a few minutes. Come for Tiger and Charlie, stay for everything else. And that’s before the tournament actually begins!
Once we get started it’s plenty of fun, too, especially if you’re gathered with family for the holidays — the PNC is a good group watch. I’m particularly excited for the addition of Fred Couples to this year’s field, and with Justin and Mike Thomas out I’m guessing there’s a good chance we’ll see Couples in Woods’ group…
2. “The Showdown”
The Crypto dot com Showdown, I should say, which is coming to you on Tuesday, Dec. 17th at 6 p.m. ET from Shadow Creek in Las Vegas. Is this the bad-blood battle everybody’s been dreaming of? Sort of. There’s plenty of great stuff about this: It’s Brooks and Bryson vs. Rory and Scottie, pitting four of golf’s biggest names and personalities head-to-head. It’s LIV vs. the PGA Tour, with the potential for real rivalry to spill into an exhibition match. It’s on Tuesday night, with no football to compete with. It’s three six-hole matches, mixing formats and finishing with singles. And it’s Dec. 17 — what else do you have going on?!
Sure, maybe there’s an edge taken off the whole thing, knowing that all four of these pros want golf to come together, knowing that McIlroy and Koepka played together in a Grove XXIII member-member tournament last week, knowing that there are far more good vibes than rivalry among this group. But there’s plenty of competitive fire, too. If these guys have one thing common it’s that they desperately hate to lose. That’s a win for us.
3. The Mauritius Open
What do I know about this golf tournament? Not much other than the dates, Dec. 19-22, the defending champ, Louis Oosthuizen, and the fact that it calls itself “Golf’s Most Beautiful Week.” Epic. If you live outside the United States or if you’re just up at odd hours, seeking golf coverage, this could be the one for you. This is the final DP World Tour event of the year — though, confusingly, it’s also one of the first of the season, bringing a close to the global circuit’s opening swing through southern Africa after last week’s Nedbank Golf Challenge and this weekend’s Alfred Dunhill Championship. What’s going to happen at Mont Choisy Le Golf? Wake up early, tune in and find out.
4. ‘Warming Up’ returns
This is a potentially problematic inclusion because this is my YouTube series, but here we are. Our first season of Warming Up produced some of my favorite conversations of my professional life — I got to conduct driving-range interviews with a handful of mega-talents, going deep on process and mindset with everyone from Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau to Fred Couples, Shane Lowry and Viktor Hovland. Who’s next? I’ll just give the hint that he won a major championship recently. At least one. You can subscribe here so you don’t miss it…
One favorite from last season, just to sample:
5. Two fascinating docuseries
I don’t know if they’re fascinating because of the actual content or just because I think it’s fascinating that they exist, period. Maybe they’re literally only fascinating to me. But there are two team-golf docs I’m partway through and while I’m not ready to give a full-on endorsement I’m at least intrigued what you’ll think of ’em. On YouTube there’s a docuseries following LIV’s Majesticks, the team co-captained by Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Henrik Stenson, as they struggle their way through the 2024 LIV season from the bottom of the table. And coming next week there’s unCommon, the docuseries following the construction of the TGL’s Boston franchise, which should feature various setbacks — the collapse of the dome, the defection of team member Tyrrell Hatton, etc. — and an intriguing countdown to league launch. Do I wish both docs had been done independently, with no editorial oversight from the people involved? For sure, 1000 percent yes. That could have probed some existential questions about what we’re all doing here. But we’ll take what we’ve got. It is mid-December, after all.
