It won’t be long before the new golfing year is upon us. It really does not matter how good or bad the year gone by was, the new sun of January 1 brings oodles of optimism for the golfers.
– Writers' choice: A year of epic encounters and feelgood finals
The new season has already been kick-started for both the main tours in the world. The PGA Tour, now in its second year of adopting a wraparound season, is six tournaments old and will welcome 2015 with the traditional Hyundai Tournament of Champions in Kapalua, Hawaii.
The European Tour began its new Race to Dubai last month with two events in South Africa, which will also host the first event of the new year. Both tournaments will be played next week.
Here are some of the storylines that will surely dominate the sport in the coming few months:
Masters and McIlroy’s career grand slam: This will definitely be the biggest story in golf in 2015, and it is a pity that we will know the result as early as Sunday, April 12.
As is well known, world No1 Rory McIlroy will not just be aiming for a third straight major crown after winning the Open Championship and the PGA Championship last year, he will also be able to complete a career grand slam if he manages to win his first Green Jacket at Augusta National.
McIlroy himself hasn’t been afraid to drum up his own chances and acknowledge how excited he is at the prospect of driving down the Magnolia Lane at the start of the week on a golf course where everyone expect him to win several times in his career.
The only doubt in the mind of experts is whether he will be able to shake off the court battle against his former management company, which is expected to reach it’s bitter end around the third week of February.
There have already been concerned voices over whether it will hamper his preparation for the season’s first major.
The return of Tiger Woods: There was a time when this would have been the biggest story in the game by far, but it is a tribute to the meteoric rise of McIlroy that Woods has been relegated to second billing in this list.
But the fact remains that Woods still creates the biggest noise in the game, and hopefully, we will see him competing at 100 per cent fitness. He may have finished second last in the 18-man field at the Hero World Challenge last month, but those four rounds included several fluffed chips and three-putts.
He can master his short game within no time, but the best thing about his four rounds at Isleworth was that he was giving the ball a good whack and did not flinch or catch hold of his back even once.
And if 2015 turns out to be the year when the much anticipated Woods-McIlroy rivalry finally develops, it will forever be remembered as a vintage year in the sport.
Major story: As mentioned earlier, all eyes will be on the Masters at the start of the year, but the one major I am really looking forward to this year is the Open Championship. And that is because it is returning to the Old Course at St Andrews as it does after every five years.
The links-like Chambers Bay, which will host the US Open for the first time, and Whistling Straits, which is a regular stop on the PGA Tour and is hosting its first major in the form of the PGA Championship, are both amazing golf courses, but they can never match the romance and nostalgia of an Open Championship at the Old Course.
The Johnson mystery: Whenever Dustin Johnson decides to return from what the PGA Tour insists is ‘leave’ and the reputed Golf.com claims is a six-month suspension because of use of recreational drugs, hopefully, his clubs will continue to talk the same language they did before he shocked his fans.
The athletic Johnson is one of the most exciting players on the Tour and he should not be lost to the game like Anthony Kim.
Graduation of Fowler: American Rickie Fowler did everything but win a golf tournament in 2014. In his last 11 starts, he has 10 top-tens, and he was also inside the top-five of all four majors. The only way Fowler can now better that is by winning a major. We should be able to get a decent preview to his season when he renews his rivalry with McIlroy at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship.
Spieth, the new McIlroy: He has done it enough times the last couple of years, but his final two tournaments of 2014 were decisive proof that 20-year-old Jordan Spieth is now ready to make a serious challenge for the summit of world golf.
At the Australian Open, he snatched McIlroy’s crown with a final-round 63 that was so sublime in treacherous conditions that even the world No1 was forced to make a gushing tweet about Spieth.
A week later and after a flight across the globe, he crushed a quality field at Woods’ Hero World Challenge and won by a whopping 10 shots.
The year of Stenson: And finally, let’s not forget Henrik Stenson. The world No2 had a fantastic 2014, but it was nowhere near the way he finished 2013. What would have disappointed the Swede was that he could convert only one tournament into a title win – the DP World Tour Championship. If he can continue in the same vein, 2015 could well be the year of Stenson.
