By:
Josh Sens
January 1, 2023
Justin Thomas and the U.S. will head to Rome for the Ryder Cup.
Getty Photos
How have been your holidays? Tranquil? Restful? Glad to listen to it. After a tumultuous yr in golf, you deserved a respite. However don’t get too relaxed as a result of the calendar is about to flip. And should you thought 2022 was wild, assume on this: 2023 stands to be wilder nonetheless. Listed here are 10 potential sources of rigidity — and pleasure — within the yr forward.
1. Main confrontations
In 2022, the PGA Tour-LIV battle was waged largely at a distance via verbal volleys, sanctions and authorized filings. This yr holds the promise of turf wars fought within the flesh, with troopers from both sides assembly head to head on among the recreation’s most storied grounds. Augusta’s latest announcement that LIV gamers is not going to be banned from the Masters raises the prospect of titillating April matchups. Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson could be must-see TV with a wealthy subtext. Ditto. Patrick Reed and Jordan Spieth. We may go on. However you get the purpose. With Augusta setting precedent, it looks like a protected wager the opposite majors will take the same stance towards LIV gamers, clearing the way in which for contests extra compelling than a confrontation.
Inside Amen Nook: A patron’s-eye view of golf’s most well-known three-hole stretch
By:
Jessica Marksbury
2. A brand new-look Amen Nook
Within the age of recent bombing, it now not takes a miracle to make it via the ultimate leg of Amen Nook. Most guys can attain the thirteenth at Augusta with driver, mid-iron, max. At the very least, they may. The fabled par-5 could have a brand new again tee in 2023, a some-40-yard extension geared toward restoring the risk-reward drama to a historic pivot level on the course. They are saying the Masters doesn’t begin till the again 9 on Sunday. This yr, the event may finish for some unfortunate contender on the freshly lengthened thirteenth. We’ll be watching from the sting of our seats.
3. Extra world-ranking rancor
Towards the top of 2022, Phil Mickelson dropped out of the highest 200 within the Official World Golf Rating, his lowest OWGR standing in additional than three a long time. As a sensible matter, which may not imply a lot to Mickelson, who, for now, doesn’t want these factors for entry to the majors. However different LIVers don’t get pleasure from that luxurious, making Mickelson’s plunge a reminder of a bigger subject within the ongoing combat over professional golf’s future. LIV Golf utilized for OWGR recognition final summer season. It desires world-ranking factors. It wants world-ranking factors. Whether or not it’s going to get these factors is TBD. The OWGR has been recognized to take its time with such choices. However this sizzling matter could be back-burnered just for so lengthy. The yr forward stands to deliver some readability to a vital, polarizing query, with loads of sound and fury alongside the way in which.
4. The ladies tackle Pebble
The ladies’s recreation deserves a much bigger highlight, and no stage shines brighter than Pebble Seashore, the place the U.S. Girls’s Open shall be staged for the primary time within the 77-year historical past of the occasion.
One other main is coming to Pebble Seashore in 2023.
getty photos
5. A detailed-up for 2 classics
An additional have a look at Pebble received’t be the one catnip for structure nerds. The approaching yr can even deliver the first-ever U.S. Open to Los Angeles Nation Membership (North), a vaunted venue that ranks tenth on GOLF’s roster of High 100 Programs within the U.S. Yet one more bonus is that storied Oak Hill, in New York, will return to view, internet hosting its first main (the PGA Championship) since a glowing 2020 restoration.
6. Mamma mia! Golf’s finest rivalry resumes
Not all roads result in Rome. However the Ryder Cup is headed to the outskirts of the traditional metropolis, the place Marco Simone Golf & Nation Membership will stage the first-ever enjoying of the occasion in Italy. If the prospect of a Constantino Rocca sighting doesn’t get you excited, an already-heated battle, unfolding in a rustic crammed with sporting ardour, should do the trick.
7. Two extra for the report books?
Within the trendy period, solely 5 gamers (Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Participant, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods) have captured all 4 majors to finish the profession slam. In 2023, not one however two stars have an opportunity so as to add their names to that rarefied roster. Jordan Spieth wants the PGA Championship. Rory McIlroy is lacking the Masters. That each will trip into the season on resurgent video games raises our hopes of seeing historical past made.
Sergio Garcia received’t be on 2023 Ryder Cup group. He appears nice with it
By:
Sean Zak
8. Elevated occasions
Extra money alone doesn’t make golf extra attention-grabbing. But it surely does appeal to large names. With the rollout of a brand new schedule, rejiggered to focus on a sequence of “elevated” occasions with pumped-up purses, the sport’s A-listers will come collectively extra usually. Consider it as trickle-down economics. The richest golfers will hold getting richer, however at the least that may include payoffs for followers.
9. Will the feds crack down?
This previous summer season, phrase broke that the Division of Justice had launched an antitrust investigation into the PGA Tour and its actions in response to LIV, an inquiry that can also be wanting into the heavy-hitting likes of Augusta Nationwide and the US Golf Affiliation. These sorts of probes take time. However 2023 may very well be the yr we be taught whether or not the sport’s strongest establishments have fallen afoul of essentially the most highly effective prosecutors within the land.
10. That lingering lawsuit
As 2022 floor on, a rising refrain of voices, together with Rory McIlroy’s, started urging reconciliation between the PGA Tour and LIV. Self-appointed authorized consultants on social media have taken up the same chorus. However in line with precise authorized consultants, antitrust legal guidelines don’t make such dealings straightforward. “For opponents to take a seat down and attempt to attain a deal is fraught, and for good motive,” says Josh Davis, a professor on the College of California, Hastings Faculty of Regulation, and a number one scholar on antitrust process. “The tendency is to reach at a compromise that’s good for everybody besides customers and society at massive. Antitrust legal guidelines rightly defend in opposition to that.” In lieu of a detente, the larger chances are LIV’s antitrust grievance will head to trial this yr, which might be a barn burner. The opposite possibility is that LIV drops the go well with, which might be large information, too.
Josh Sens
Golf.com Contributor
A golf, meals and journey author, Josh Sens has been a GOLF Journal contributor since 2004 and now contributes throughout all of GOLF’s platforms. His work has been anthologized in The Greatest American Sportswriting. He’s additionally the co-author, with Sammy Hagar, of Are We Having Any Enjoyable But: the Cooking and Partying Handbook.