The manufacturer doubled-down on its epic holiday card on Christmas Eve, sharing some behind-the-scenes footage of the photo shoot.
“I never thought in my life I’d be in a onesie,” said Rahm, with Johnson adding, “Now I know how my kids feel like every night.” The most-excited appeared to be Wolff.
There is no denying that the last decade has been great for the game of golf. From 2010-19 golf fans saw the emergence of generational stars like Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka, Tiger Woods’ grand return, countless rules violations and …
There is no denying that the last decade has been great for the game of golf.
From 2010-19 golf fans saw the emergence of generational stars like Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka, Tiger Woods’ grand return, countless rules violations and controversies, the first-ever women’s event at historic Augusta National, some unforgettable shots and legendary moments in majors and team competitions.
And every one of those events produced memorable quotes that true fans of the game will remember forever.
Check out the best quotes from the last decade, broken up by year, and send us any that we may have missed.
Analyzing Rory McIlroy’s chances and betting odds of winning another major championship during the 2020 PGA Tour season.
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Will Rory McIlroy win a PGA Tour major championship in 2020? Based off BetMGM‘s golf betting odds, I analyze McIlroy’s best opportunities to win along with some of the best potential golf betting lines to cash in on McIlroy’s play this year. This piece is part of a SportsbookWire series, which will look at the PGA Tour’s biggest names and their chances of winning a major championship in 2020.
Rory McIlroy’s 2019 PGA Tour Highlights
T-4 Sentry Tournament of Champions
T-5 Farmers Insurance Open
T-4 Genesis Open
2nd WGC-Mexico Championship
Won The Players Championship
Won RBC Canadian Open
T-4 FedEx St. Jude Invitational
Won Tour Championship
T-2 Omega European Masters
T-3 Zozo Championship
Won WGC-HSBC Champions
4th DP World Tour Championship, Dubai
PGA Tour odds to win a major in 2020
Name
Official World Golf Ranking
Odds
Last PGA Tour win (Solo)
Last major
Brooks Koepka
1
+200
July 2019
2019 PGA Championship
Rory McIlroy
2
+250
Nov. 2019
2014 PGA Championship
Jon Rahm
3
+350
Jan. 2018
NA
Justin Thomas
4
+450
Oct. 2019
2017 PGA Championship
Dustin Johnson
5
+200
Feb. 2019
2016 US Open
Tiger Woods
6
+400
Oct. 2019
2019 Masters
Patrick Cantlay
7
+500
June 2019
NA
Justin Rose
8
+400
Jan. 2019
2013 US Open
Xander Schauffele
9
+500
Jan. 2019
NA
Tommy Fleetwood
10
+600
NA
NA
While Rory won four times on the PGA Tour in 2019 and now has 26 worldwide wins in 309 career events, he hasn’t won a major since going back-to-back at The Open and PGA Championship in 2014. He has eight top-10 major finishes in that time, however, including two in 2019.
Where is Rory McIlroy’s best chance of winning a major in 2020?
Event
2020 Venue
Best career result
Odds
Masters
Augusta National
4th (2015)
+800
PGA Championship
TPC Harding Park
Won (2012, 2014)
+1000
US Open
Winged Foot
Won (2011)
+1000
Open Championship
Royal St. George’s
Won (2014)
+1200
McIlroy’s best chance of ending his major drought in 2020, according to BetMGM, comes at the one major separating him from the career grand slam. Last year’s event was his first time finishing outside the top-10 at Augusta National since 2013.
He finished T-25 the last time The Open was at Royal St. George’s in 2011, and he has never played professionally at either Winged Foot or TPC Harding Park.
Will Rory McIlroy win a major in 2020?
McIlroy certainly finished up his 2019 season well, and he has been a strong early-year golfer for the majority of his career, as seen by his top finishes a year ago. His frequent trips to the winner’s circle in 2019 should boost his confidence heading to Augusta as a rightful favorite.
I’m betting McIlroy at the Masters and pairing up a green jacket win with each of the other majors, as well. Victories at the Masters and Open, for example, would return a profit of $1,160, for example, with +11600 odds.
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Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson in green Christmas onesies? You bet.
Last week Tiger Woods and Dustin Johnson were donning the red, white and blue for Team USA as the Americans made an epic comeback to win the Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne in Australia.
Now, they’re rocking … green Christmas onesies in front of a fireplace?
Tiger Woods completed his comeback over the last few years, but two PGA Tour stars notched 18 victories in the last decade.
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The first decade of the 21st century was dominated by Tiger Woods.
He won 56 PGA Tour titles and 12 major championships. He was named the PGA Tour’s Player of the Year eight times. And his sustained brilliance and dominance continued to elevate the sport’s exposure – as well as its purses.
His star power was so lit that people wondered if the sport would survive if he ever went away. Well, Woods didn’t go away despite a public scandal and numerous battles with his back and left knee when the calendar turned to 2010. And joined by a stellar cast of gifted golfers, the game marched on in the next decade.
A new crop of stars, many inspired by Woods, included Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka, Justin Thomas and Jason Day, took the stage. Established stars, with Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson, helped the game flourish.
Here are the top 10 players of the decade who authored so many flashes of stardom.
Lefty began the decade with an emotional victory at the Masters as his wife, Amy, successfully battled cancer. It was his third green jacket. In 2013, he won the British Open for the first time, his fifth major. While the U.S. Open remains elusive, he finished second in 2013 for his record sixth runner-up in the national open. He went nearly five years without a victory but then won the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship in 2018, which he followed with his 44th Tour title the following year at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am at age 48. He won seven PGA Tour titles and also played in every Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup except one during the decade.
9. Bubba Watson
The big-hitting, creative lefty from tiny Bagdad, Florida, began the decade with zero wins. He ended the decade with 12 victories, the third-most by a player in the decade. Two of those wins came in the Masters, two others in World Golf Championships. While he wowed galleries everywhere with his pink driver and prodigious firepower, he was one of the best on and around the greens.
8. Justin Rose
After beginning his career by missing the cut in his first 21 tournaments, Rose became a force in this decade. He won 10 PGA Tour titles. He won the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion, won the 2018 FedExCup at 38. He draped the gold medal around his neck when golf returned to the Olympics in 2016. He reached No. 1 in the world.
7. Jason Day
Through numerous ailments – especially to his back – Day won 12 times in the decade, including his lone major title at the 2015 PGA Championship. He won the Players, two World Golf Championships and two titles during the FedExCup Playoffs. His run from 2015-16, when he won seven of 17 titles, was one of the best in the decade. He also became No. 1 in the world.
After joining the PGA Tour in 2014-15 season, it didn’t take long for Thomas to establish himself as one of the game’s elite. In 2019, he became just the fifth player in the past 60 years to win 11 Tour titles before turning 27. The others? Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth. His 2017 was one of the decade’s best years, as he won his maiden major at the PGA Championship, captured five titles in all and won the FedExCup. He also reached No. 1. He heads into the next decade coming off a 2019 in which he won twice, including a tournament in the FedExCup Playoffs.
5. Tiger Woods
The game’s biggest star kept coming back. After a public scandal kicked off his decade, he added three Tour titles to his haul in 2012 and five more in 2013, when he was named the PGA Tour Player of the Year by his peers and became No. 1 again. Then his back went out and Woods wondered if his playing career was over. But four surgeries to his back – the most recent a spinal fusion – gave him back his way of life. Then he overcame an addiction to prescription painkillers. After a five-year winless drought, he won the 2018 Tour Championship. Seven months later, he marked his comeback with a remarkable victory at the Masters, his fifth green jacket, 15th major and first in 11 years. In his last PGA Tour start of the decade, he won the Zozo Championship in Japan for his record-tying 82nd PGA Tour victory.
Tiger Woods celebrates after making a putt on the 18th green to win the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club. (Photo: Rob Schumacher, USA TODAY Sports)
4. Jordan Spieth
He was in high school when the decade started. He used sponsor’s exemptions to kick off his career and won his first PGA Tour title as a teenager. He won 10 more times in the decade, with his creativity, bulldog attitude and electrifying putters among his numerous weapons. In 2015, he posted the decade’s best year and flirted with the Grand Slam as he won the Masters and U.S. Open, finished in a tie for fourth in the British Open (one stroke out of a playoff) and second in the PGA. He also won the FedExCup and became No. 1. His third major title came at the 2017 British Open. That was his most recent victory, but he’s confident his elite form will return in the coming decade.
3. Brooks Koepka
He began his professional career in the remote areas of the European Tour’s developmental circuit but finally touched down in the U.S. with a victory in the 2015 Waste Management Phoenix Open. Then he became a major force, both with his power, demeanor and touch on and around the greens. From 2017-19, he won his four majors and became the first player ever to go back-to-back in the U.S. Open and PGA Championship. In 2019, he won the PGA, finished second in the U.S. Open, tied for second in the Masters and was fourth in the British Open. He will begin the new decade as the top-ranked player in the world and the game’s most feared player in the four major championships.
2. Dustin Johnson
He tied for the most victories in the decade with 18, among them his lone major at the 2016 U.S. Open, six World Golf Championships and four wins in the FedExCup Playoffs. He also had the most top-5s in the decade (58) and most top-10s (88). He won at least one PGA Tour tournament every year. He also finished runner-up in three majors, including twice in 2019 at the Masters and PGA Championship. While his power is matched by few others, he worked hard to become one of the game’s best from 150 yards and in.
1. Rory McIlroy
The boy wonder became the man in golf this decade. He won 18 times on the PGA Tour and added six more titles on the European Tour. He became the heart and soul of the European Ryder Cup team. With his eight-shot romps in the 2011 U.S. Open and 2012 PGA Championship, he joined Tiger Woods as the only players to win multiple majors by at least eight shots. With his FedExCup titles in 2016 and 2019, he joined Woods as the only two-time winners of the lucrative postseason. McIlroy won four majors, tying Koepka for the most in the decade, and three PGA Tour Player of the Year awards, the most in the decade. In 2019, won four PGA Tour titles, including the Tour Championship and the Players. He won the decade’s last World Golf Championship. He was the best player of the decade.
Rory McIlroy gave his opinion about the rules controversy surrounding Patrick Reed that occurred during the Hero World Challenge.
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Rory McIlroy believes Patrick Reed should be given the benefit of the doubt regarding the controversial two-shot penalty Reed incurred at the Hero World Challenge. But he thinks Reed has become an easy target for some critics.
“I think it’s hard because you try to give the player the benefit of the doubt,” McIlroy said during an extensive interview on Golf Channel’s Morning Drive on Monday. “He’s in there and he’s trying to figure out which way to play the shot. Obviously he’s moved some sand so it is a penalty. But I keep saying, I don’t think it would be a big deal if it wasn’t Patrick Reed. It’s almost like a lot of people within the game, it’s almost like a hobby to sort of kick him when he’s down.”
The live shot and slow-mo versions of Reed’s two practice swings at the Hero in the Bahamas have now been dissected millions of times. Upon reviewing the clips again Monday in the studio, McIlroy said, “I certainly don’t think there was intent there. … It’s very hard for me not to think he didn’t feel what he was doing. It’s a hard one. But again, I’d rather try to give someone the benefit of the doubt. And just say, look, it was a mistake, take your penalty and move on. And yeah, it’s going to make things difficult for him down in Australia this week.”
Only just seen this from Patrick Reed at the Hero Challenge event!
Under Rule 8, which addresses playing the course as the player finds it, a player is prohibited from improving conditions affecting a stroke.
Under Rule 8-1a, actions that are not allowed include the removal or pressing down of sand or loose soil. Reed did that twice, though the second movement is irrelevant.
The two-stroke penalty proved costly, turning Reed’s 72 into a 74 in the third round. He would go on to finish with a final-round 66 and in third place, two shots back of winner Henrik Stenson.
Rory McIlroy matters as much to the European Tour as Tiger Woods does to the PGA Tour, no matter what Keith Pelley says.
LONDON, England – Rory McIlroy matters as much to the European Tour as Tiger Woods does to the PGA Tour, no matter what Keith Pelley says. The same goes for the Europe’s other “names.”
The European Tour chief executive was in an ebullient mood (when is he not?) at the European Tour Hilton Golfer of the Year lunch at the swanky Biltmore Mayfair Hotel in Grosvenor Square, London. Pelley celebrated Jon Rahm winning the Golfer of the Year award, and gushed over the Tour’s accomplishments in 2019.
Pelley spent part of his 25-minute speech reiterating his view that he wasn’t obsessed with star participation. The Canadian made the same point to a select group of journalists during the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai, which Rahm won to end the season as European No. 1.
“Talk of player participation is very important to us,” Pelley said in Dubai. “But it’s not the only thing that defines a great tournament.
“If we spend our entire time on top-player participation and if that was the only metric that our sponsors and partners look toward, then we are setting ourselves up for disappointment.
“So we look at it but we don’t become obsessed with it.”
He would say that, wouldn’t he, since it’s getting harder to guarantee top player participation because of the money these guys are earning?
To make his point, Pelley lauded the Turkish Airlines Open and Nedbank Golf Challenge, two of the final three 2019 Rolex Series tournaments. Both tournaments featured up-and-coming players in Matthias Schwab and Marcus Kinhult going against established Ryder Cup stars in Tyrrell Hatton and Tommy Fleetwood.
True, both events featured exciting finales. They also suffered from a lack of “names.” They were the weakest of this year’s eight Rolex tournaments, events with a prize fund of $7 million or more. The Nedbank had a strength of field rating of just 191, Turkey was second weakest with a 234 ranking. By comparison, the BMW PGA Championship was strongest at 416, stronger even than the DP World at 367. The Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open was third at 309.
Pelley took the time during the Player of the Year lunch to have a playful dig at myself and other members of the media sitting at table No. 4 for our obsession with top-player participation. Here’s the truth, Keith: We have a better chance of covering a European Tour event if Rory and other top names are in the field. It’s a far easier sell to our sports editors.
Rory not only has greater appeal to golf fans, but non-golf fans too. Just as Tiger does. Most of my friends who don’t follow golf know who Rory is. Most probably have no idea who Schwab or Kinhult are, no matter how good they might become, and they might struggle even to pick Hatton and Fleetwood out of a police line-up.
Just as Woods moves the needle anywhere he plays, it’s the same with McIlroy on the European Tour. His involvement in a tournament, any tournament, means more fan interest, more media interest and therefore more publicity for the sponsor. I’ll guarantee the happiest sponsors of the eight Rolex Series tournaments this year were the three Rory played in – the Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open, BMW PGA Championship and DP World.
I had a conversation recently with a golf administrator at a golf course which has previously held European Tour events. I asked if the course was interested in hosting another tournament any time soon. Yes, was the answer, but not if it meant getting the European Tour’s B-team.
If the Rolex Series events can’t guarantee the top names, then what chance do sponsors with less funds have?
Star participation matters, Keith, no matter how you spin it.
Rory McIlroy hasn’t been afraid to speak his mind, and the Ryder Cup has provided plenty of drama in our top 10 story lines of the decade.
The European Tour hardly gets a break at all.
Last season ended Sunday at the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai, where Jon Rahm earned the $3 million first-place check for winning his second DP title, and a further $2 million bonus for finishing the season as No. 1 on the Race to Dubai.
The next season starts this week at the Alfred Dunhill Championship in South Africa, a mere four days later.
With not much time to catch our breath, Golfweek’s Alistair Tait takes a look back at the top 10 story lines on the European Tour in the last decade:
Sergio Garcia during the Saudi International at the 2019 Royal Greens Golf & Country Club on in King Abdullah Economic City, Saudi Arabia. (Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)
10. Sergio’s Saudi meltdown
Sergio Garcia displayed a lack of etiquette during the 2019 Saudi International that left fellow competitors disgusted. Garcia willfully damaged several greens during his third round. Players behind complained and the Spaniard was disqualified. It was yet another poor breach of etiquette from the Spaniard, following throwing a shoe in anger during the 1999 World Match Play Championship and spitting into Doral’s 13th hole during the 2007 CA Championship.
First and foremost, Eamon Lynch is giving thanks for Tiger Woods for his win at the Masters and all that it means for the game.
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There was a lot to be grateful for in golf in 2019, and now is the time of year that we get to give thanks for it.
First and foremost, Eamon Lynch is giving thanks for Tiger Woods for his win at the Masters and all that it means for the game. There’s also Brooks Koepka and Rory McIlroy, who have given golf fans the first taste of a legitimate PGA Tour rivalry in more than two decades.
Lynch’s list spans the villains of golf, the up-and-comers of golf and even the turkeys of golf.
There is indeed a lot to be thankful for this year.
Watch the video at the top of the page to see the latest edition of Eamon’s Corner.
Florida, began the decade with zero wins. He ended the decade with 12 victories, the third-most by a player in the decade. Two of those wins came in the Masters, two others in World Golf Championships. While he wowed galleries everywhere with his pink driver and prodigious firepower, he was one of the best on and around the greens.
