2016: The Year Ahead In Golf

By Ryan Herrington

Our experts preview the storylines that golf fans will be following in the coming 12 months.

Photo by Getty Images

PGA Tour: The challenges to a Spieth encore

What can Jordan Spieth do for an encore in 2016? Well, without even winning a major he can still stand out. Since the advent of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup in 2007, no player has successfully defended the cup title, and only one (Brandt Snedeker in 2013) has ever managed to qualify for the next year’s play in the Tour Championship. It’s hard to think Spieth (shown) won’t be among the top 30 on tour in 2016. Yet just as the road to the ’15 title got tough after Jason Day’s late-season push, it will be even more challenging in the coming year. A healthy Rory McIlroy gets cracking early, having announced he’ll make his first career appearance at the Northern Trust Open at Riviera in February to begin his PGA Tour year. Day has clearly learned how to win, which should serve him well when the tour season resumes Jan. 7 at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions at Kapalua. Kevin Kisner shows up in Hawaii as the FedEx Cup leader after becoming a first-time tour winner at the RSM Classic in November. At 31, however, Kisner is not among the twenty-something champions (Justin Thomas, Emiliano Grillo, and Smylie Kaufman) who’ve dominated the early part of the wraparound season. If this trend continues, expect U.S. Ryder Cup team captain Davis Love III to field a squad with a healthy infusion of youth when it takes on Europe in September at Hazeltine National. —Dave Shedloski

The Majors: A classic mix of brutes

The four major championships are golf’s clearest definers. Augusta National sets the tone, giving the Masters winner the inside track on owning the year, as Jordan Spieth did in 2015. The USGA designs the U.S. Open to be toughest of the majors, and in its ninth hosting of the national championship, Oakmont should keep its title as hardest of all the Grand Slam venues. Angel Cabrera’s five-over-par 285 won in 2007, when the brute outside Pittsburgh played at a relatively modest 7,230 yards. This year, rough lines have been altered so that deepened fairway bunkers will catch more tee shots. The renovation at Royal Troon for the Open Championship has been more extensive. The bony links on Scotland’s West Coast will add some yardage to the 7,175 yards (par 71) of 2004, along with some visual improvements. Baltusrol, host of the PGA Championship, yielded its third 63 in a major at the 2005 edition (won by Phil Mickelson) making the A.W. Tillinghast classic a prime target for finally the first 62 at a major. Speaking of Lefty, his white-whale pursuit of the U.S. Open (to complete the career Grand Slam) will be a focus at Oakmont. But until further notice, each major will be rightfully billed as a battle among the new Big Three: Spieth, Rory McIlroy (shown) and Jason Day. —Jaime Diaz

European Tour: An ambitious new direction?

It promises to be an eventful year for the European Tour, and that’s just with the action off the course. How the recent resignation of Asian Tour chief executive Mike Kerr will impact the proposed merger, slated to kick off in 2017, between the two circuits is unclear. Indications are that Kerr’s departure was the result of unrest among journeymen Asian professionals concerned by a potential limitation of competitive opportunities on the new tour. One prominent European Tour insider, however, expressed only mild concern about the new arrangement, asserting that CEO Keith Pelley (shown in glasses) will simply spend 2016 “picking off the Asian events one by one” to integrate each into the current schedule. In the meantime, Pelley’s publicly stated aim of providing a “viable alternative” to the PGA Tour for leading European players gained traction with last month’s announcement that the 2022 Ryder Cup will go to Italy. As a result, the previously moribund Italian Open will boast a prize fund of €3 million this year (double 2015) and €7 million in 2017. Whether Pelley, a 51-year-old former Canadian sports media executive still in his first year overseeing the European Tour, can persuade enough sponsors to invest at such an uncharted level will determine the success or failure of his ambitious target. —John Huggan

LPGA Tour: On stronger footing than ever

The LPGA rolls into 2016 with many compelling questions. Will the Inbee Park-Lydia Ko rivalry be joined by Rookie of the Year Sei Young Kim? With Park and Ko (shown) winning five times each, and Kim victorious in three events, the trio took home 40 percent of the titles in 2015. Will there be a hangover from Suzann Pettersen’s way-too-late apology for refusing to concede Alison Lee a short putt in an intensely competitive Solheim Cup? Is Lexi Thompson’s short game ready to make her a big-time player? Will Stacy Lewis rebound after a winless (and frustrating) season in which she had nine top-three finishes? Can Michelle Wie stay healthy? How will impressive U.S. Women’s Open winner In Gee Chun fare in her rookie LPGA season? And is Gaby Lopez, who earned her card as an amateur, capable of joining Lorena Ochoa as a star from Mexico? The tour’s 34-event, $63 million schedule (compared to 23 and $40 million in 2011) begins later this month at the Pure Silk Bahamas Classic and concludes at the CME Group Tour Championship in November. Besides the permanent-site majors—the ANA Inspiration at Mission Hills in Rancho Mirage, Calif., and the Evian Championship in France—the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship heads to Sahalee C.C. near Seattle, the U.S. Women’s Open goes to CordeValle near San Jose and the Ricoh Women’s British Open is at Woburn in England. —Ron Sirak

The Olympics: As competition approaches, format questions persist

Pardon the expression, but it’s not exactly going to take an Olympian effort for the game’s top golfers—be it Jordan Spieth, Lydia Ko or those just behind them on the respective World Rankings—to collect gold medals as golf returns to the Olympics for the first time since 1904. That’s not to say there shouldn’t be excitement in Rio de Janeiro (Olympic Course shown) come August. It’s just that an early glance at the International Golf Federation’s current Olympic rankings suggests the competition might not match the hype. Both the men’s and women’s tournaments are restricted to 60 players, with no more than four representatives from any country. This means many of the game’s best won’t qualify for the 72-hole stroke-play competition. If the men’s event were held today, only 35 of the 60 Olympians would be ranked in the World top 100. The field also would include senior players Miguel Angel Jimenez and Vijay Singh, but not World top-10 golfers Jim Furyk or Patrick Reed, or British Open champion Zach Johnson. Maybe that’s one reason Adam Scott has referred to the Olympic golf tournament as an “exhibition.” Oof. On the women’s side, 35 of the top 100 in the World Ranking would also be competing. The per-country limit particular impacts South Korea. Consider that U.S. Women’s Open champion In Gee Chun, who is No. 10 in the Rolex Rankings, is only the sixth best among her countrywomen. —Dave Shedloski

Champions Tour: A colorful new contestant

It has been a while since John Daly was anything but a Technicolor sideshow in golf. But as his 50th birthday approaches on April 28, and with it his Champions Tour debut, is a career revival in store? Daly’s last victory of any note came in 2004, at the Buick Invitational, and he has had only seven top-10s in the last eight years. The 11-time leader in the PGA Tour’s driving-distance category has remained above average in length on the regular tour, which bodes well for him as he graduates to the shorter layouts on the senior circuit. Daly (shown) is among the storylines to watch in 2016, as he and fellow two-time major winner Jose Maria Olazabal headline the Champions Tour’s incoming class that also includes Billy Mayfair, Jerry Kelly and Bob Estes. Change is coming to the tour in another form, as well. The Champions Tour will inaugurate a three-tournament, season-ending playoff in October and November to determine the Charles Schwab Cup champion. The new PowerShares QQQ Championship at Sherwood Country Club outside Los Angeles will be the first playoff event, followed by the new Dominion Charity Classic in Richmond, Va., and the Charles Schwab Cup Championship in Scottsdale. —John Strege

Colleges/Amateurs: Intrigue at the team and individual levels

College and amateur golf seem destined to swap storylines in 2016, with an individual attracting attention in the team-centric collegiate game and team golf carrying the intrigue on the amateur circuit. Stanford junior Maverick McNealy (shown), winner of nine tournaments in his last 17 starts, is looking to be the first back-to-back college player of the year since Phil Mickelson’s three-peat at Arizona State (1990-’92). McNealy’s success has the Cardinal figuring to be in the hunt for the NCAA title at Eugene (Ore.) Country Club this spring. Then again, the men’s team race appears to be a wide open, with as many as a dozen viable contenders, including the top four teams after the fall: Auburn, Wake Forest, Florida State and Illinois. By comparison, the women’s college game has its traditional powers in place in USC, Duke and UCLA. The second year of match play at NCAAs increases the potential for a dark-horse winner, but the depth of the Trojans (led by Karen Chung), Blue Devils (Leona Maguire) and Bruins (Bronte Law) suggests they won’t go easily. Maguire, from Ireland, and Law, from England, should also be heard from during the summer amateur season as both are likely members of the Great Britain & Ireland Curtis Cup team that will face the United States at Ireland’s Dun Laoghaire Club in June. U.S. captain Robin Burke looks to lead the Americans to a second straight win and a ninth in the last 10 matches. —Ryan Herrington

Equipment: Anchors away

The New Year brings about the start of the most anticipated—and arguably most debated—equipment rules change of the modern era. How the implementation of Rule 14-1b—better known as the anchoring ban—will shake out among everyday golfers remains to be seen (here’s a primer for those still searching for answers) but in the professional game those who fought the ruling have no choice but to find an alternative. Three players in particular bear close attention. First is Adam Scott, who made the switch at the Presidents Cup in October and had some early success using a non-anchored stroke. Then there are two of the more notable dissenters: Tim Clark and Bernhard Langer. Clark has used the anchored stroke on the greens throughout his 18-year pro career and has repeatedly said he can’t putt if he can’t anchor. Langer (shown) criticized the reasoning golf’s ruling bodies gave for the ban but stoically resolved to find a new, conforming way. What that way is and whether it will allow the 58-year-old German to compete at the supreme level he has sustained on the Champions Tour—where he’s won 25 events—is what we’re all waiting to see. —E. Michael Johnson

Course Architecture: A renewed emphasis on quality

With the men’s majors returning to classic, time-tested venues in 2016, old storylines will be recalled and familiar names will be bandied about. In turn, as an increasingly enlightened golf world finds more charm in Golden Age masterpieces, the general notion that architecture matters more than ever to golf’s stakeholders seems to be bolstered. Look no further than the redesign efforts to be unveiled in 2016 at Royal Portrush and Turnberry, two already world-class courses endeavoring to impress the R&A. Stateside, a new partnership between the USGA and ASGCA will be launched in hopes of helping underfunded public-course projects. While at the higher end of the spectrum, there will be continued attention paid to developer Mike Keiser, whose partnership with Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw will be highlighted by full access to Nova Scotia’s wondrous Cabot Cliffs (shown), and with test play this fall at Wisconsin’s Sand Valley. Yet more than any of the aforementioned, the Olympic golf course in Rio de Janeiro should build continued momentum for more lay-of-the-land, rustic designs to dot the globe. In the face of sometimes bizarre Brazilian political backlash and interference, architects Gil Hanse and Amy Alcott have produced the design International Golf Federation officials dreamed of passing along to the Olympic Organizing Committee: generous fairways, minimalist maintenance demands and a public-access legacy course reinforcing the joys of less opulent, nature-based architecture that hearkens to golf’s origins. —Geoff Shackelford

The Unexpected: A Tiger return, a Trump controversy, and don't forget the Ryder Cup

That somebody could make winning the calendar-year Grand Slam appear possible ranked among the true surprises of 2015 (Thank you, Jordan Spieth). So what shocks might the New Year hold? Sadly, seeing Tiger Woods back on the golf course would be one. Even Woods’ most optimistic fans shuddered last month after hearing the former World No. 1 (now No. 416) discuss the slow pace of his latest comeback from back surgery. Speculation about when he might practice—let alone play—again will be rampant, and will undoubtedly include multiple “sightings” (real or otherwise) of Tiger knocking off the rust. Of course, we could predict Donald Trump will say something inflammatory about golf on the presidential campaign trail, but that would be too obvious. What would be truly unexpected, though, is for one of the PGA Tour, USGA, PGA of America or the R&A to decide Trump (shown) had gone too far and strip one of his clubs of hosting a truly marquee event. Each January we wonder if this is finally the year the pro tours address slow play. It says here the European Tour, with its energetic new CEO Keith Pelley, will do more than talk a good game and actually issue stroke penalties, forcing the PGA Tour’s hand on the matter. We also envision tour pros will whine (after catching their breath) about how busy the summer schedule will be with three majors and the Olympics held in a 64-day window, but you won’t hear any complaints from fans who’ll get more premier golf. And the most unexpected thing we can think of in 2016? How about a U.S. Ryder Cup victory? —Ryan Herrington