The sideshows stole the limelight in 2024, and just at the right time too. From a golf fan’s perspective, 2024 started slow but ended with a bang. Tiger and Charlie Woods’ heroics at the PNC Championship and Team Langer’s comeback made the event an absolute cracker to watch. A video of Charlie hitting an ace while his dad wasn’t looking has become one of the most viral golf videos of the year. And what about professional basketball star Caitlin Clark’s round with Nelly Korda at The Annika? The pro-am, played at the clearly had the biggest galleries not just of the week, but possibly at any LPGA event all year. It’s hard to comprehend for those who don’t follow the WNBA—Clark is one of the biggest sports superstars in the US, and most players at the event were lining up to get her autograph along with the fans.
But it was the final event of the year that took the cake. The Grant Thornton Classic that featured LPGA players pairing up with their male counterparts in a rare mixed-team invitational event drew eyeballs, media and ignited a social media frenzy. It was sweet-swinging Jake Knapp playing with Patty Tavatanakit who produced a putting masterclass to shoot a cumulative 27-under par and win by a stroke over Tom Kim and Jeeno Thitikul. Akshay Bhatia and Jennifer Kupcho came in third. Knapp and Tavatanakit split a million dollars right down the middle. Talk about a major payday for what is considered as an ‘exhibition’ event. “It was nice to put the cherry on top of my 2024 season to win my last event of the year,” said Tavatanakit, who won the Honda LPGA Thailand in 2024. “It’s definitely going to be a nice feeling to take some time off. And to be able to do it alongside Jake, it’s just been so fun, and I couldn’t have asked for a better partner.” The duo were the fan favourites all week, not just on account of their camaraderie but because of the wide attention Knapp’s golf swing has been getting in the press. If you haven’t already, then look it up online. Knapp’s smooth and elegant action has been getting described in adjectives only used for Fred Couples in the past.
The last quarter of 2024 was unusually exciting for that time of the year—well past the end of the regular seasons on most major tours and typically the time of the year that players take it easy and prepare for the next season. With so many ‘seasons’ and ‘series’ and ‘swings,’ things can get pretty confusing. So let’s get a handle on that first: things are simpler since the PGA Tour synced its ‘Season,’ to a calendar year in 2024. So the 2025 season that began this week at ‘The Sentry,’ will continue till the FedEx Cup Playoffs and their culmination at the Tour Championship in the latter half of 2025. Players who fail to qualify for the playoffs will have to play the Fall Series that will start after the Tour Championship. Originally launched in 2007, the tourney was designed as a lifeline for these players, with a chance to compete in seven tournaments and accrue points to qualify for the main tour.
Cue to 2024, and the Fall Series has transformed beyond its original intent. The introduction of innovative formats and addition of exhibition matches like the PNC Championship, which pairs family members, and events that draw in notable athletes from other sports make for excellent viewing. Winners of Fall events receive a two-year tour exemption and invites to the Masters, PGA Championship and the Players Championship and the Sentry and the total purse of the eight Fall events is $63 million. Finally just in case that wasn’t confusing enough, the Fall Series has been rebranded this year as the ‘FedEx Cup Fall.’
In terms of viewer engagement, the series has never been more popular, had more sponsors, boasted higher purses and better fields, than it did in 2024. Ironically, while the series has evolved into a bonafide season, or at least a ‘swing,’ the players whose benefit it had been created for—the middle-of-the-rung, the journeymen, and the like—have not had it easy. This year, the PGA Tour had its first round of ‘pink slips,’ when its board approved whittling down full playing status to only the top 100 players, down from 125. These changes will go into effect in 2026 and that promises to make the 2025 season extremely competitive with over 170 players vying for the top 100 spots. Given that, the 2026 Fall Series is likely to be a real humdinger of a finale… You know, the kind everyone hopes to see at the Tour Championship.
As a postscript, the Tour has reportedly been convinced that the staggered format of its season-ending event — players accrue points over the season and start on different scores at the Tour Championship — doesn’t make for an exciting contest. Last year, even the guy who stood to gain the most in that format—world number one Scottie Scheffler—called it ‘silly.’ Scheffler started the Tour Championship as the leader at 10-under, and coolly proceeded to win the whole shindig–Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup–quite convincingly.
According to a news report in The Athletic earlier this week, the PGA Tour is finally looking at recalibrating the Playoffs to a ‘bracket-style,’ format along the lines that American college football and basketball are played. Both—strokeplay and matchplay—are apparently on the cards. Here’s an idea: why not just have a parallel set of playoffs with all the players who couldn’t make it to the FedEx Cup. We could just call it the Fall Season, Season Two. And you thought the rules of golf were confusing.