The National Football League season started this week, which means the PGA Tour’s schedule worked out perfectly again. The meat of the PGA Tour ends before the NFL season, meaning the bigger events on the PGA Tour won’t get hammered in television ratings by football.
But as the golf season ends – there are still tournaments to be played for golfers fighting to make the top 125 players and secure an exemption for 2025 – it’s interesting to look back on 2024. It was a year that saw history on the PGA Tour in several areas, including a massive year by the game’s current dominant player and an amateur who turned into one of the game’s better players with four magical days in La Quinta.
Here are five things to remember about the 2024 PGA Tour season:
Scottie Scheffler’s year of history
Some might argue that the most exciting thing Scottie Scheffler did all year was getting arrested trying to drive into the PGA Championship in Louisville in May. But the truth is Scheffler’s 2024 season goes down as one of the best in the last 50 years, and if you take away all the years by Tiger Woods, Scheffler’s season is at or near the top of any season this century. Seven PGA Tour wins including the Masters, the Players Championship and the Tour Championship has the feel of some of Woods’ better years. Scheffler has 13 wins in three years now including two majors. What will 2025 have in store for him?
The stars came out to play
If the PGA Tour thrives on star power, then the 2024 season was exactly what the PGA Tour would have wanted. Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the world, won seven times and added an Olympic gold medal for good measure. Xander Schauffele broke through with two major championships to cement the status people had been expecting from him. Rory McIlroy, still one of the most popular players in the world, won twice on the PGA Tour and suffered a difficult loss at the U.S. Open. Even Bryson DeChambeau, not on the PGA Tour but on the LIV Tour, had a big year with the one-shot win at the U.S. Open and a runner-up to Schauffele at the PGA Championship.
Nick Dunlap’s surprise
Of the many surprises in 2024, none came close to Nick Dunlap’s victory at The American Express. Still an amateur and the reigning U.S. Amateur champion at the time, Dunlap played in La Quinta on a sponsor’s exemption. The result was a stunning victory for Dunlap, which included a third-round 60 at La Quinta Country Club. Dunlap became the first golfer to win as an amateur on the PGA Tour in 33 years, since Phil Mickelson’s win at the Northern Telecom Open in Tucson in 1991. Later, Dunlap won the Barracuda Championship, becoming the first golfer ever to win on the tour as an amateur and a pro in the same season.
Grayson Murray
Murray’s story in 2024 went from exhilaration to tragedy in just four months. Murray won his first PGA Tour event in seven years at the Sony Open in Hawaii in January, a win that came after years of fighting alcohol abuse and mental health issues. The feel-good story turned tragic in May, when the 30-year-old Murray withdrew from the Charles Schwab Challenge in Texas one day and was found dead by suicide the following day in his home in Florida. It was the worst kind of reminder that the struggle against substance addiction and mental health issues never really ends.
No deal yet
The 2024 season on the PGA Tour started with talk of negotiations between the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund about possibly bringing the PGA Tour and LIV Tour closer together. And there was talk of billions of dollars being invested in the PGA Tour by Strategic Sports Group, a group of sports owners looking to help the PGA Tour with its finances while hopefully making money on the deal. As the 2024 season ends, there is still no deal between the PGA Tour and the PIF, though the money from the SSG has helped the PGA Tour for the time being. It seems now that any deal between the two golf leagues won’t be able to take effect until the 2026 season.
Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for The Desert Sun, part of the USA Today Network. You can contact him at (760) 778-4633 or at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_bohannan. Support local journalism.