Bold golf predictions for 2024: A Canadian wins a serious, Tiger Woods contends

Professional golf, definitely on the boys’s aspect, had a yr not like another in 2023.

And when you’re a Canadian golf fan, you noticed the best season by a bunch of pros in historical past.

So, what’s the plan to prime that?

The PGA Tour returns to a calendar-year season for 2024 after greater than a decade of a wraparound FedExCup season. So come Jan. 1, the slate is cleaned and everybody – effectively, save Jon Rahm and the remainder of the LIV Golf roster – can have a dash to the FedExCup Playoffs in August.

After a record-setting 12 months for Canadian golfers and a few never-before-seen information bombs for everybody else, definitely on the boys’s aspect, listed below are 4 daring predictions for golf in 2024.

A CANADIAN WILL WIN A MAJOR

The Canadian success in skilled golf by way of 2023 has been lengthy repeated, however the one factor lacking from the collective resume of these on the highest stage is a serious championship victory. That, I consider, will change in 2024.

On the boys’s aspect, Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin are returning to Augusta National for the primary time since 2020, whereas Corey Conners — who has been a stalwart within the prime 10 on the Masters the previous few years — will proceed to construct off his latest successes there. The remainder of the boys’s majors will happen at Valhalla Golf Club (PGA Championship), Pinehurst No. 2 (U.S. Open), and Royal Troon (The Open).

Canada enters 2024 with 5 golfers ranked inside the highest 100 on the earth on the boys’s aspect (with Taylor Pendrith at No. 102) they usually’re all vying for a spot on Mike Weir’s International Team on the Presidents Cup on dwelling soil at Royal Montreal. The greatest method to earn loads of factors is to play effectively on the majors.

With this Canadian collective all hitting their primes proper now, it’s time to benefit from the momentum, the nice play, and the truth that this group is pushing one another yr after yr.

“Canadian golf is certainly on the rise,” Corey Conners mentioned on the Grant Thornton Invitational in December. “It’s really fun to be part of it.”

But: I mentioned, ‘a major’ and never essentially one from the PGA Tour’s schedule.

Stephen Ames comes into subsequent yr’s PGA Tour Champions season after successful 4(!) instances in 2023 on the over-50 circuit. He had three top-20 leads to senior majors this previous yr and a win on one of many senior tour’s 5 main championships is the one factor lacking from his resume.

And in fact, there’s Brooke Henderson. Her greatest likelihood in 2024 will possible come when the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship returns to Sahalee Country Club, the positioning of her main breakthrough on the LPGA Tour in 2016. Henderson has additionally completed 1-2 the final two years on the Amundi Evian Championship and had three top-15 outcomes at majors in 2023.

So, whether or not it’s Henderson, Ames, or one of many half-dozen PGA Tour members with an actual shot at an actual particular win — don’t be shocked if a Canadian tilts a trophy on a giant stage in 2024.

THE INTERNATIONAL TEAM WILL WIN THE PRESIDENTS CUP

The final time the Presidents Cup was contested at Royal Montreal, sure, the International Team misplaced. But the story of the week unfolded simply as everybody had hoped — Mike Weir, on the crew as a captain’s choose, defeated Tiger Woods in a dramatic Sunday singles showdown.

Now the biennial competitors between the perfect from the United States and the perfect from the remainder of the world (not together with Europe) will attempt to take inspiration from Weir and see David beat Goliath.

It’ll be a tall activity, definitely. This would be the fifteenth Presidents Cup competitors and the International aspect has received solely as soon as, in 1998. There was a tie in 2003, however in any other case, Team USA has received 9 in a row.

It defeated the Internationals 17.5-12.5 in 2022 on the Quail Hollow Club in North Carolina.

Still, Weir shall be bringing the bulldog mentality that has lengthy helped him reach his multi-decade profession (together with successful the Masters in 2003 and attending to No.3 on the earth on the peak of the Tiger Woods period) as captain and can lead an International crew that includes the best-of-the-best towards a battered-and-bruised American squad that received wiped by the Europeans on the Ryder Cup in September.

Weir has modified his qualifying standards in order that the primary six spots will go purely off of world rating – maybe opening the door for golfers who jumped to LIV to have the ability to play. The different six shall be captain’s picks.

American captain Jim Furyk advised Sportsnet within the fall that about 75 % of the American Ryder Cup crew would possible be on his Presidents Cup crew. That assortment of particular person stars couldn’t get the job finished in Europe. I predict Team USA will endure two straight losses on international soil.

THE LIV GOLF/PGA TOUR AGREEMENT WILL ACTUALLY BE A GOOD THING

For Canadian golf followers, the thrill from the RBC Canadian Open has been usurped by some type of LIV Golf announcement (solely early within the week, nevertheless, has the final two event finales — Rory McIlroy going back-to-back and Nick Taylor’s drought-busting playoff winner — had been all-timers) however right here we’re, six months later, and nonetheless nothing has been formally finished about the way forward for males’s skilled golf.

The PGA Tour can’t compete with the Saudi-backed circuit with regards to straight money. Full cease. Jon Rahm was rumoured to obtain no less than $300 million (U.S.) to make the bounce. The fractured stage isn’t nice for followers or sponsors alike.

If these within the negotiating room have an finish goal is to get the perfect golfers on the earth collectively extra typically to compete, exterior of simply the majors, then it’s a win for everybody. Anything else, and we’re proper again the place we began.

TIGER WOODS WILL GET INTO CONTENTION AT LEAST ONCE

I’ll be the primary to confess: I simply can’t give up Tiger Woods.

Woods, too, can’t appear to offer it up.

If the final two weeks of the season for the 15-time main winner had been any indication, he confirmed loads of optimistic indicators at each the Hero World Challenge and the PNC Championship alongside his son Charlie.

Woods mentioned he was hopeful to play no less than one occasion monthly in 2024, possible beginning on the Genesis Invitational (of which he’s the host). Then he’d maybe tee it up at The Players after which the majors earlier than seeing the place he was on the FedExCup standings. Of notice, Woods is just not technically within the subject for the U.S. Open, but it surely’s possible the USGA will lengthen a particular exemption to him as he has received the U.S. Open 3 times (and each the U.S. Junior and U.S. Amateur 3 times apiece).

Woods is swinging effectively. His stroll is way improved. And, mentally, he’s nonetheless as sturdy as ever. Although he’s inching nearer to 50, I believe he’ll get into competition at one of many greatest occasions on {the golfing} calendar in 2024.

HONOURABLE MENTION: A CANADIAN WILL WIN AN OLYMPIC MEDAL IN GOLF

Golf returns to the Olympics in 2024 at Le Golf National in Paris, France.

Xander Schauffele and Nelly Korda, each of the United States, are the defending gold medallists.

Currently, Corey Conners and Adam Hadwin plus Brooke Henderson and Maddie Szeryk are in for Canada. Henderson is the favored choose for a medal, however I’d say Conners is a sneaky choice to seek out the rostrum as Le Golf National is a ball-strikers paradise — and Conners is without doubt one of the greatest on the earth at doing precisely that.