Major(s) News & Notes January 23, 2025
Old Course 2027 and Walker Cup ticket info updates. Plus, Waugh opines, Sprague is opposed to rollback, Inverness gets more tweaks, Nicklaus turns 85, This, That, Listens and Reads.
Days to The Masters’ Honorary Starter’s tee shot: 77
Days to the Chevron Championship start: 91
Days to the PGA Championship’s first tee shot: 112
Days to the U.S. Women’s Open first tee shot: 126
Days to the U.S. Open’s first tee shot: 140
Days to the Women’s PGA Championship: 147
Days to The Open’s first tee shot: 176
Days to the Women’s Open first tee shot: 189
Days to the Walker Cup flag-raising ceremony: 225
Days to the Ryder Cup opening session: 246
The Open is headed back to St Andrews, the USGA offers an update on 2025’s toughest ticket, the immediate past and present PGA of America CEO’s talk, and plenty more in a busier-than-most News & Notes.
The Open Returns To St Andrews In 2027
The R&A has announced that The 155th Open will be played at St Andrews from July 11-18, 2027. This keeps the championship on an every-five-years plan of playing the Old Course.
The Championship will return for the first time since Cameron Smith’s final round 64 and 2022 victory. In announcing The Open, the R&A noted that 2027 marks the 100th anniversary of amateur Bobby Jones winning The Open by six strokes over the Old Course.
“I’m hugely excited to be making this my first announcement at The R&A,” said new CEO Mark Darbon. “I’m looking forward to The Open’s return to St Andrews every bit as much as the fans and the players. There is something incredibly special about The Open being played on the Old Course and so many of the great champions have walked these fairways since the first staging here in 1873.”
It will be the 31st time at the Old Course dating to Tom Kidd’s 1873 win.
The Open will be the last major played under the current golf ball testing rules prior to 2028’s expected attempt at reigning in distance which makes multiple holes play shorter for the field, causing brutal logjams that resulted in rounds over six hours in 2022.
There had been conjecture and reports that the R&A might not stick to the five year rotation. However, The 150th Open at St Andrews generated over £300 million in economic benefit for Fife and Scotland while setting a new attendance record.
Walker Cup Ticket Update
The combination of property limitations and limited number of matches means the attendance will be “capped to an appropriate and manageable number each day.”
All single-day public tickets will be sold in advance via an online application available this spring. No number has been given on the total attendance allowed onto the property for the three-day event. Prices:
Practice Round – Friday ($100/ticket – includes Flag-Raising Ceremony)
Match Day 1 – Saturday ($200/ticket)
Match Day 2 – Sunday ($200/ticket)
Notably and refreshingly reversing a lousy trend, each adult applicant will have the option to apply for one complimentary junior (17 years old and under) ticket per day.
The landing page for Walker Cup ticket information.
The page for submitting contact information to be notified when additional ticket information becomes available.
Waugh Opines On Multiple Topics
Freed up from worrying about answering to anyone, Waugh shared some hot takes on big issues.
On the job: It’s not that I'd tired of it. It was truly the most fulfilling thing I ever did, but I also have five children and I’m of an age. The timing was right and I felt pretty good about leaving it better than we found it. There's no scar tissue at all, if that was your question.”
On the PGA of America governance structure where the CEO reports to senior officers and not the board. “I think it needs to be modernized.”
On leaving Trump Bedminster in 2022. “It was a really hard decision but something we had to do at the time. It would have been a really difficult environment to operate a championship in. I feel good about the process of how we did it and my own personal interaction with the president.”
On how the Ryder Cup task force grew long in the tooth evolved. “The agent of change, which was the task force, became an agent of non-change because it was the same kind of people. It was Davis [Love III] and then Jim [Furyk] and then Steve [Stricker] and then Zach [Johnson]. They're all the same generation, all sort of the same person. I don’t mean that in a negative way. We put younger people on the Ryder Cup committee, Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, and they said it would be great to have a captain that's more relatable.”
On how the Task Force picked Keegan Bradley. “I literally wrote down everybody that I thought was a possibility, went into the committee meeting and said a few names, then said my real choice is Keegan Bradley. There was this pregnant pause and then all of a sudden the committee members go, ‘Oh my God! We never would have thought of that, but that's a great idea and he's the right guy.’ And there was immediate consensus.”
On paying Ryder Cup players a stipend. “If you take any lesson in the last few years, the world is tired of talking about money. Golf was supposed to be playing for a higher purpose. That's what the Ryder Cup signifies, you know? And because we give 20% of our television rights to the PGA Tour already, we are paying the players. We’re paying all the players, not just 12. I don't think it's gonna change their lives because it's not a big enough number to matter to them. They can monetize their participation in a way that blows away whatever you can pay them. And I just think for the players to ask to be paid for it is kind of a bad look.”
On players asking to be paid. “Not really. They asked a lot of questions. A couple of players wanted to understand the finances of Ryder Cup and the PGA of America. Fair enough, there should be transparency there. You know, ‘Why are we growing the game on the back of me?’ kind of thing. Which I understand, but it's on the back of everybody. But no, nobody ever specifically said I want to get paid. There are obviously implications of it. We've been talking about for 25 years about being paid, and now it'll be how much are we getting paid.”
On selling the Ryder Cup. “I won't give you a specific answer on the Ryder Cup as much as saying everybody should be thinking about their strategic alternatives, what their assets are, and what's the best way.”
On the length of PGA Tour and PIF negotiations. “I'm surprised it's taken as long as it has. It's complicated, but I've done a lot of complicated things that haven't taken this long. That part of it is sort of indefensible.”
On LIV’s influence. “I don't mean LIV broadcasts are the model because they’re unwatchable.
On Jay Monahan. “He did an amazing job during COVID. He's done a really good job of understanding players, being part of the ecosystem and being a partner. I think he was put in a very tough position. It’s not just Jay but the board — they made some mistakes which turned a really hard situation a lot worse.”
On agent greed. “They're trying to represent their players and some of that is understandable. As a professional athlete, you know you have a limited window and once it's over, it's over. I understand why they want to harvest as much as they can. I don't think they have taken enough perspective on what long-term greed means. Short-term greed is ugly. Long-term greed is smart. What is your brand? How do I perpetuate the game because that's where I'm gonna make my money?
On money talk. “The Tour lost the trust of the players and then the players got selfish because they lost their trusted benefactors.”
On the damage done to pro golf. “I don't think it's been fatal damage. The game will survive, but you gotta bring fans back. Baseball had strikes, lost a lot of fans and never quite got them back. We build a city every year to have the PGA Championship. It's insanely inefficient, right? The only reason that exists is because people watch it. And if you don't take care of that … that's what I meant about private equity. Don't kill the goose. The goose is the fans, it's not a financial model that tells you what you should be doing. That’s just not how it works.”
New PGA CEO Opposes Rollback
“I don't know what recreational golfer or many Tour professionals quite frankly that want to hit the ball shorter,” Sprague said. “I look forward to working with the USGA, the R&A and the other governing bodies to see if we can come to an agreement that would please our PGA members, recreational golfers at large, and then also this 2028 start date for elite level and '30 for the recreational golfer. That's even more challenging for the PGA professional.”
Here’s your occasional reminder that the USGA/R&A proposed start dates were split and pushed back after the whining of grown PGA types who genuinely believe that extra set of planks they do has led to incredible distance gains, not watermelon-sized drivers or golf balls that’ll survive the next Ice Age.
Sprague also predicts hoarding and stockpiling predicted by people who haven’t done enough homework to know that the average shlub would notice a difference.
“I know Adam Schupak is going to be buying dozens of Pro V1s in '29,” Sprague continued, “And our PGA professionals are the ones that are governing the rules at the local level, member-guests, club championships and stuff, and they're going to have to be checking to see if everybody is playing a conforming ball.”
Good, it’ll get ‘em out of the office where they’re answering panelist emails.
Inverness Undergoes More Work
Kyle Rowland detailed surprisingly extensive chances to Toledo’s Inverness Club as the storied club continues to modernize Donald Ross’ design. Presumably the effort is in search of a men’s major that has eluded the place since Paul Azinger’s 1993 PGA win.
Work noted since the significant 2017-18 restoration of Inverness by architect Andrew Green:
All 18 holes were “touched”
A new green on the par-5 13th
Eleven bunkers were added to bring the total to 106 on the property.
Church pews were added down the right side of the par-4 second.
The back of the seventh green was expanded to add pin positions.
“Duffers bunkers” on the par-4 ninth in a nod to Ross’ propensity to build seemingly out-of-play hazards off the tee (to generate dirt?).
The short par-4 18th saw the addition of 37 yards and restoration of the front hole location seen most famously in the 1986 PGA Championship.
The club next welcomes the 2027 U.S. Women’s Open and 2029 U.S. Amateur after recently hosting the Solheim Cup and U.S. Junior Amateur.
Nicklaus Turns 85
On Jack Nicklaus’ 85th Birthday, Bob Harig shares stories you might not have heard. And Nicklaus turned up on Five Clubs with Gary Williams to discuss a nice array of topics:
Links Trust Eyes Duke’s Course
The St Andrews Links Trust is in “advanced” talks to take over a long-term lease of the Peter Thomson-designed course. Named for the disgraced Duke of York and former Captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, the inland layout sits two miles from the Old Course and is viewed as a nice inland test when conditions are dry.
The Kohler-owned hotel has refused to reconsider naming the remodeled course. But with the passing of Herb Kohler, the operation appears to be reprioritizing.
Unclear is how acquiring the lease fits into the mission of the Links Trust. The “charitable trust” must reinvest profits “to help protect and maintain the world famous courses here at the Home of Golf.”
Quotable
Rory McIlroy on Tyrrell Hatton. “He hits the ball very straight, he doesn’t try to shape it really one way or another. Hits it really straight and it looks like he has his sort of systems and the way he practices. He does a really good job at that. He also doesn’t give a flying fig what anyone else thinks which is a really good attribute to have in the game. He’ll be amazing in New York. He’s proved that over the last three Ryder Cups. He’s a massive asset for the European team.”
This And That
Delta Airlines is once again adding many flights into Augusta surrounding the 2025 Masters. A “Tournament Partner,” Delta will provide up to 1,900 daily seats and a 15% increase in capacity over 2024’s effort. You can see the full schedule of added flights here.
Netflix says the “immersive documentary” season three of “Full Swing” will feature moments from a “relentless season of competition on the PGA Tour, including all four of golf’s Major championships, The Masters, The PGA Championship, The U.S. Open, The Open Championship, and for the first time in Full Swing, the Presidents Cup.” Highlights teased: “Rory McIlroy’s emotional rollercoaster in and out of competition,” “Bryson DeChambeau’s evolution from anti-hero to fan favorite,” “Wyndham Clark partners with Mark Wahlberg to take their brand to the next level,” and “Gary Woodland fights to return to the sport after battling a brain tumor.” This surefire game-grower drops premieres February 25th.
Listens
Reads
🦊 James Colgan with seven things to know about Fox’s foray back into televised golf.
🏌️Ron Green talks to Lanny Wadkins about retiring from broadcasting and doing more course design work.
Wadkin’s comment about how the former Ryder Cup captains were treated by the current players in Rome tells you all you need to know. Greedy narcissists.
I agree with Waugh that the LIV telecasts are unwatchable. The graphics are hideous. If they removed all the gaudy colors and just displayed a CBS style minimal presentation it would be much improved. Maybe Fox will improve it.
The TGL is not much better. Rich pros faking a sense of humor – this will be gone in 18 months.
I can’t wait for the Masters – the first tournament this year I really care about.