Wish list: What we hope to see on the PGA Tour in 2022

It might be wishful thinking, especially if the wind doesn’t blow off the North Sea, but I want to see the Old Grand Lady stand up to the big boys of professional golf in the 150^th Open Championship.

Of all the 2022 tournaments, this is one that doesn’t need a cloud of potential embarrassment looming overhead.

But that’s going to be the case if the air is still. If it is, most likely, the Home of Golf is going to get ransacked. Right in front of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews in Scotland, which was founded in 1754.

Repeat, if the wind doesn’t blow, the rumpled, timeworn ground will get lit up by bigger, faster, and stronger players teaming with technology to launch missiles and make the course play more to a par of 68 than its scorecard-written 72.

The Old Course at St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland. Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images

With little room to lengthen the course, players will be salivating. The most recent year the Old Course hosted the Open was 2015, when Zach Johnson shot 66-71-70-66 and won in a playoff in 2015. That year, the course played to just under 7,300 yards and featured seven par-4s measuring under 400 yards, including the 356-yard 18^th, which Bryson DeChambeau might reach with a 3-iron this year.

In 2000, when Tiger Woods completed the career grand slam on the Old Course, he set the scoring record of 19 under with rounds of 67-66-67-69.

Unless the course is saved by the much-needed ally named wind, Tiger’s record is gone. Branden Grace holds the record for the lowest round in major championship history with a 62 (Royal Birkdale in 2017). Unless it blows, that’s gone.

What would the powers in the R&A and U.S. golf Association do if someone puts his signature to a 59? Heck, a 58? Or two or three players do. Picture DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy and others unleashing lumber and driving multiple greens or at the least having flip wedges into the greens over and over and over again.

And the greens aren’t exactly menacing.

It could be a red-number blitz of humiliation. If so, perhaps it would be the proverbial final straw and significant action will be taken to limit distance. But after all these years, it would just be sad if it came at the expense of the Old Grand Lady. So let it blow, let it blow, let it blow.

—Steve DiMeglio

Rory McIlroy celebrates winning The CJ Cup at The Summit Club on October 17, 2021 in Las Vegas. (Photo: Alex Goodlett/Getty Images)

One wish? Give me some history-making this year at the majors so I can sit my grandkids on my lap someday when the highlights play and tell them I had a front-row seat when (fill in the blank) completed the career Grand Slam.

Hope springs eternal that Rory McIlroy (at the Masters), Jordan Spieth (at the PGA Championship at Southern Hills), or Phil Mickelson (at the U.S. Open at The Country Club) can close the deal and join one of golf’s most exclusive clubs. It’s got only five members to date and none since Tiger Woods joined in 2000, but I’d like nothing more than to see one of this great triumvirate stuck with three legs of the Slam make it a six-pack of career Grand Slammers.

McIlroy, who is winless in the majors since 2014, and Spieth enter 2022 with renewed hope that their game is trending in the right direction, and Mickelson, well, he proved at the Kiawah PGA in May that he still has enough gas in the tank on any given week. Any of those three winning would be memorable simply for the achievement, but Mickelson finally winning a U.S. Open after six runner-up finishes would be next level. As we in the story-telling business like to say, it would be too big to write. … but my wish would be to be given the chance to try.

—Adam Schupak

Depending on whose side you were cheering for, last season’s Ryder Cup and Solheim cup were either among the highlights of your year or among the things that you’d rather not talk about. But there is no denying that both events were willed with passion, patriotism, teamwork, and ultimately, great golf.

What I want to see in 2022 is a joining of these two events, or at least the start of a discussion about playing the Ryder Cup and the Solheim Cup at the same course on back-to-back weeks. And after they’re done, I want to see a match that combines the squads and pairs the men and women in a new event.

Remember when Martin Kaymer won the 2014 U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2, and the following week Michelle Wie won the Women’s U.S. Open on the same course? It was awesome and should be recreated with team competitions.

Since golf restarted during the summer of 2020, women’s golf has started to get some of the attention that it has deserved for decades. Nelly Korda, Danielle Kang, Anna Nordqvist and Sophia Popov can play circles around the chauvinistic guys who anonymously troll them on Twitter and Instagram, claiming they could beat golf’s top female players. Fellas, you couldn’t. They are elite athletes and every bit as dedicated to getting better and winning as their male counterparts. Your 2 handicap (which is probably more like a 22) would get smoked.

When I wrote for Tennis Magazine, I invariably noticed something at every U.S. Open as I strolled around the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. There was never a discussion about which game, the men’s or the women’s, was better. No one cared that Pete Sampras’ serve was faster than Steffi Graf’s (I’m dating myself, but indulge me), or that Andre Agassi’s forehand was bigger than Monica Seles’. Everyone appreciated the skill, the athleticism, and the quality of the play.

Everyone mingled in the player dining areas and common rooms, talked about their seasons, chatted with people they hadn’t seen since early July at Wimbledon, and had a great time.

Fans loved it too. They flocked to the practice courts to get a glimpse of Venus and Serena Williams hitting next to Michael Chang.

What I want would take years to plan and require changes to schedules. The LPGA and Ladies European Tour announced they are moving the Solheim Cup to even years starting in 2024, and I don’t care, change back to odd-numbered years. How great would it be if the Bethpage Black, slated to host the 2025 Ryder Cup, also hosted the Solheim Cup and then a mixed team event?

I’m not holding my breath on this one, but my wish is that we start talking.

—David Dusek

Will Zalatoris and Scottie Scheffler congratulate each other after playing the second round of the AT&T Byron Nelson golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Jim Cowsert-USA TODAY Sports

Sure, I’m playing the homer card on this one (I live in Austin), but as the game of golf continues to increase its presence in the Lone Star state — there are now five PGA Tour/WGC events, a Champions event, an LPGA event as well as a soon-to-be coming LPGA major and the new PGA of America headquarters — it’d be nice to see the state’s young talent breakthrough as well.

Will Zalatoris grew up outside Dallas and he’s primed to get his first victory in 2022, as is Scottie Scheffler, who also calls the DFW home.

More: Predicting first-time winners on Tour in 2022

While it’s great that strongholds in Florida and Arizona (and California, to some extent) continue to produce and nurture future stars. having Texas carve out a bigger place on the schedule as well as the winner’s board is good for keeping the game moving in the right direction.

—Tim Schmitt