Compared with last year, 2011 was a feel-good stretch for golf. In 2010, the themes were Tiger Woods’s feckless efforts to rebound from scandal, Dustin Johnson’s final-round botches in two majors, and the U.S. Ryder Cup team’s disappointing loss in Wales. By contrast, this year was full of triumphs, and tees up the coming season for more high drama.
The most resounding triumph was 22-year-old Rory McIlroy’s runaway victory at the U.S. Open at Congressional. Both his record 16-under-par total of 268 and his eight-stroke margin on the field were Tiger-like in scale, and seemed to confirm the predictions of many that the mopheaded lad from Northern Ireland is destined to become one of the game’s all-time greats.
Less sensational, perhaps, but just as impressive because it showed mental toughness over time, was Luke Donald’s winning the money title and Player of the Year on both the PGA and European Tours, an unprecedented feat. Entering the year ranked No. 9 in the world and with a reputation for being a poor closer, the 34-year-old Englishman recast himself psychologically as “the assassin” and won four times. In 19 of his 25 events, he finished in the top 10. In May he took the No. 1 spot and has stuck there since.
Woods ended 2011 three weeks ago with a win at the limited-field Chevron World Challenge, his first since shortly before his scandal broke in November 2009. It followed two strong November showings down under, at the Australian Open and in the Presidents Cup. Woods’s left leg, most recently the cause of his mediocre play, appears to be completely healed. His two-year absence from the winner’s circle, after 13 years of only occasionally interrupted dominance, helped open up space for Donald, McIlroy, Lee Westwood and others, including this year’s Cinderella story, two-time PGA Tour winner Webb Simpson, to develop some momentum. How well they stare down Woods, should he roar back to prescandal form, will be the story line to follow as the new year unfolds.
A similar showdown may be brewing on the women’s side. Yani Tseng of Taiwan established herself this year as the dominant force in women’s golf, the successor to Annika Sörenstam and Lorena Ochoa, both now retired. She won 12 tournaments world-wide in 2011, including two majors, which bumps her total to five.
Entering stage left, however, is the 16-year-old American challenger Alexis “Lexi” Thompson. In September she thundered to a five-shot victory at the Navistar LPGA Classic, making her, by two years, the youngest-ever winner of a full LPGA event. At 6 feet tall and possessed of a powerful, well-tutored swing, Thompson is mostly likely the longest hitter in women’s golf. We’ll know for sure next year once her drives are consistently measured against the best. This fall the LPGA granted her special dispensation to join the Tour as a full member, despite being two years younger than the normal requirement. Thompson validated that decision last week with a smack-down four-shot victory at the Omega Dubai Ladies Masters.
The most thrilling tournament of 2011 may have been the first major, the Masters, which in any case is always the year’s most anticipated. McIlroy, looking confident, held a four-stroke lead heading into Sunday’s final round but self-destructed on the back nine. That opened the door to a half-dozen world-class contenders, including most unexpectedly Woods, who eagled the eighth to briefly move into a tie for the lead. Donald, Adam Scott, Jason Day and Geoff Ogilvy all had back-nine chances to win, but finally Charl Schwartzel of South Africa emerged triumphant from the chaos to claim the green jacket. He birdied the final four holes, the first time that had ever been done on the way to victory.
In a sign of precocious maturity, McIlroy redeemed himself by winning the U.S. Open two months later. Then his countryman, Darren Clarke, won the British Open at Royal St. George’s in England, with help from a timely, out-of-bounds approach shot on the 68th hole by…Dustin Johnson.
American Keegan Bradley won the PGA Championship in a playoff against Jason Dufner at the Atlanta Athletic Club. But the greater significance of his win was that he used a belly putter, making him the first major champion to do so. Scott had won with a long putter the week before, and Webb Simpson followed Bradley with two belly-putted victories in three weeks. The controversy continues: At issue is whether anchoring the butt end of a putter against one’s body confers an unfair advantage and violates the spirit of the game.
One peculiarity of 2011 was how many of the year’s most noteworthy developments, like the belly-putter controversy, occurred after the PGA. Donald, for instance, was a last-minute entry into the normally neglected, late October, season-ending Fall Series event at Disney World. He did so to chase down the late-charging Simpson for the money title. Donald’s final round 64, which included six back-nine birdies in a row, earned him the win he needed (Simpson finished T6) and was definitely his clutch performance of the year. Then, in December, he had to sweat it out for the European money title against a fast-closing McIlroy, who won that Tour’s next-to-last event in Hong Kong.
In the olden days, you may recall, golf merrily drifted off into its Silly Season come fall, ceding the stage once the four majors were done to football and the baseball playoffs. But the Skins Game is no more (the last edition was in 2008) and the rest of the world apparently doesn’t care very much about the World Series or the American version of football. The European Tour rocks on until early December, the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup matches trade midautumn time slots in alternate years, and Asian tours are picking up steam. Even the PGA Tour has joined in the action. Over the last five years it’s been successful in luring many of the global elite to the FedEx Cup Playoffs. At this year’s Tour Championship in late September, a third of the field was international. It’s a trend we in the States had better get used to.
—Email John Paul at golfjournal@wsj.com.
