The Masters

Augusta National in April remains the great stage and the Masters the ideal curtain raiser for every major championship golf season, as much for the outrageous traditions as the dramatic layout. It’s the one major that boasts the same test year in, year out so we know what it takes: a long carry from the tee, a high ball flight for approaches and a steely nerve on and around the greens.

An extra frisson of tension has been added to the 2024 edition with the defection of the reigning champion Jon Rahm to LIV Golf. Questions about his preparation and debate about his form will be heated and never-ending. Few golfers defend the Masters title. Will Rahm be a Spanish bear with a sore head or will the fuss prompt a furious retention of the green jacket?

PGA Championship

Remember the last time the second major of the year was played at Valhalla in 2014? Rory McIlroy does because it was the last time he won a major and, by the time he returns in May, it will be close to a decade-long period of major championship near-misses and disappointment (assuming he hasn’t donned a green jacket in April and with it completed the Grand Slam).

Valhalla is a Jack Nicklaus design and golfers who’ve thrived there have tended to already have significant Nicklaus layout success in their log books. In the 1996 event Kenny Perry lost a play-off, in 2000 Tiger Woods was the champion, in 2004 Hale Irwin won the Senior PGA and in 2011 Tom Watson emulated him. The first three of that quartet were Muirfield Village experts and Watson also won there.

Who is that good news for? Patrick Cantlay and Jon Rahm have exceptional records at Muirfield Village, and the reigning champion is Viktor Hovland. The ideal opportunity for the Norwegian to break his major duck maybe?

US Open

America’s national championship returns to Pinehurst No.2, the esteemed Donald Ross design in North Carolina which might just have a link with The Old Course in St Andrews if the first four winners there are anything to go by.

In recent years Payne Stewart, Michael Campbell and Martin Kaymer have won the US Open at Pinehurst. The first two had, at the time, recorded their previous major championship best result on the Old Course while Kaymer was a winner of the Dunhill Links in St Andrews. Back in 1936, Denny Shute won the PGA Championship at Pinehurst and three years before then he had lifted the Claret Jug in the Open at … yes, you’ve guessed it, The Old Course.

The most recent champion perhaps best explains this connection because Kaymer is a poor chipper of a ball and was relieved to find he could putt from off the greens at Pinehurst – and, of course, lag putting from off and on the enormous greens at The Old Course is a key skill set for winners there.

Good news for Tyrrell Hatton (who has an exceptional Dunhill Links record) and maybe also Ryan Fox who has not only finished first and second in the last two Dunhill events, but might also be inspired by returning to a course his fellow Kiwi Campbell won on.

Open

The column has always enjoyed the Open, selecting 66/1 winner Shane Lowry in 2019, 90/1 champion Brian Harman in 2023 and nabbing returns from Jordan Spieth and Tommy Fleetwood in-between.

The championship heads to Royal Troon on the west coast of Scotland for the first time since that epic head-to-head battle between the eventual champion Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson in the 2016 championship. Any kind of repeat would be welcome, but we might just have to accept enjoying The Postage Stamp – the magnificent short par-3 eighth hole.

Matches

The US has the opportunity to pull itself together following the Ryder Cup defeat in Rome. The International team will also be hoping that they can take advantage of any lingering suspicions of internal disharmony. They might need that X Factor because they are yet to win the match in the 21st century (and have only managed one tie).

The Solheim Cup will also return to even years to avoid future clashes with the Ryder Cup. Europe retained the Cup with a draw in Spain in September and their wild celebrations were watched through narrowed eyes, and commented on through gritted teeth, by the Americans. That needle ought to guarantee another quality clash in a match that just keeps on giving.

Ante-post pick: Min Woo Lee 50/1 each way in the Masters

Each of the last eight winners of the Masters had contended in the two majors played ahead of that year’s event (that, is finish top six or have been top four with 18 holes to play). In other words, they got a taste of the high life and wanted more. Men who slip their arms into a green jacket also tend to have experienced something at Augusta to give them hope for the future – a notion that the test suits them, a feeling that they enjoy the vibe.

Those factors flag the Aussie Min Woo Lee who was fifth at the US Open, his best effort in the majors so far but he’s been generally very solid in the last two years with five top 25s (and he was also fourth at halfway in the Open at Royal Liverpool).

Last year he was a little giddy on his second visit to Augusta National. He’d finished T14th on debut in 2022 and, off the back of contending in the Players Championship, he was talking up his chances on a course he feels suits him. Those high expectations proved damaging but that experience could reset his mind and he has it in him to bounce back in style.