EDITOR’S LE TTER
Let’s get down to business The majors are done for another year, but we have plenty to look forward to with the PGA and DP World Tour finales, LIV Golf and Aramco Team Series in Spain
By Matt Smith
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T SEEMS there is no escaping the summer heat for the golfers on tour these days — even in the normally cooler climes of Europe as an unprecedented heatwave swept the continent, with temperatures soaring to heights we are more used to here in the Middle East. The fairways on the Old Course at St Andrews in (usually rainy) Scotland were concrete hard for the 150th Open Championship as the final major of 2022 went to the ice-cool Aussie with the red-hot putter, Cameron Smith, in thrilling fashion, and poor old Rory McIlroy was forced to wait once again in his quest to end a major drought going back to 2014. It seems strange that the major season is already at an end by July — with the schedule rejigged to condense all four into a four-month period from April 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic caused further complications. However, that doesn’t mean the golfing action is done. Far from it. We can now look forward to the second half of the year that offers something for golf fans of all persuasions. It seems like we have only just finished packing up the grandstands from the four-event UAE Swing, but already eyes are turning to the culmination of the DP World Tour season when the biggest names descend on Jumeirah Golf Estates once more for the 14th DP World Tour Championships. Organisers have just re-
“Already, eyes are turning to the culmination of the DP World Tour” 4
golfdigestme.com
august 2022
leased tickets for the free-to-attend season finale in November, and with attendance back to full capacity, we should be in for yet another treat in the UAE as Collin Morikawa looks to defend his title. Before all that however, the DP World Tour continues its European leg — beginning with a string of events across the UK. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all get a look in before stops at the Czech Masters and the Omega European Masters at the stunning Crans-sur-Sierre Golf Club in Switzerland. All of which leads up to the Rolex Series BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth in early September, where American Billy Horschel will be hoping to claim back-to-back triumphs over one of the DPWT’s traditionally strongest fields.
express yourself Masters champion Scottie Scheffler leads the 2022 PGA Tour FedEx Cup standings
The season long Rankings race is a tight affair with Rory McIlroy holding a narrow lead over Will Zalatoris, US Open champ Matt Fitzpatrick, Viktor Hovland and the resurgent Ryan Fox and all still to play for. Over in the States, we really are at the business end of the campaign as the PGA Tour FedEx Cup play-offs and their record $15 million purses get under way in earnest with the St Jude at TPC Southwind in Memphis, followed by the BMW Championship at Wilmington Country Club in Delaware, before the PGA Tour brings the curtain down on a tumultuous 2021-22 season at the Tour Championship. Scottie Scheffler is leading the way in the FedEx Cup standings as the world No. 1 and current Masters champ looks to sign off a
spectacular season in style. However, the likes of Smith, McIlroy, Sam Burns, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay and Justin Thomas are among a host of stars who will have their own plans to spoil that party by the time they reach East Lake Golf Club, Atlanta, on August 28. Not to be outdone, it is also a hectic time for the ladies as, following the Amundi Evian Championship in France, the cream of the Ladies European Tour and LPGA head to across the Channel to Scotland for some links play in the Trust Golf Scottish Open at Dundonald, which is the traditional warmup for the final major of the year — the AIG Women’s Open at Muirfield. The Aramco Team Series then makes its welcome return with its third 2022 event at Sotogrande, where the likes of in-form Carlota Ciganda will be aiming for a home win in Spain against a stacked field including the likes of LPGA superstar sisters Nelly and Jessica Korda, who will be making their Aramco bow as the innovative series, where players contend for individual and team prizes, grows in popularity. Of course, anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock will know that LIV Golf descends on Bedminster, New Jersey, for the third instalment of its Invitational Series, with its now-monthly round of rumours as to whom will be the next big names to sign up for the Saudi-backed tour in full swing once again. Paul Casey, Henrik Stenson, Jason Kokrak and Charles Howell are the latest to be confirmed and will make their debuts at the Trump National Golf Club — lining up alongside the likes of Casey, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter. While your guess is as good as mine as to how the rift between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour/DPWT will pan out in the long term — and who else will be a ‘LIV-er’ by the time we reach The International in Boston for round four in early September — the off-course drama will continue to be almost (almost!) as intriguing as the action on it.
matthew.smith@motivate.ae @mattjosmith / @golfdigestme
scheffler: andrew redington/getty images • smith: tom shaw/r&a/gettyimages
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