The highs and lows of golf’s top players

The 2018 golf season has seen the rise of new stars and past champions. We saw the return of the people’s champion Tiger Woods as he made his comeback by winning the 2018 Players Championship in October. The season was also marked by the dominant performance of the European team retaining the Ryder Cup in France and the rise of a new female superstar, Ariya Jutanugarn, who became the first golfer, male or female, from Thailand to win a major championship. While all the talk during the year has been about Tiger and his return to golf, we cannot forget the players who consistently performed well and won on their respected PGA and LPGA Tours.

The battle for the top spot in golf, both male and female has been a roller coaster ride throughout the year. Justin Rose (ENG), Brooks Koepka (USA), and Dustin Johnson (USA) fought for the position as the world’s best male player while Ariya Jutanugarn (THA) and Sung Hyun Park (KOR) battled it out to be called the best female golfer in the world. In the end there can only be two with Justin Rose and Ariya Jutanugarn currently claiming the top positions.

Justin Rose

Justin Peter Rose was born in Johannesburg, South Africa on 30 July 1980 to an English family who later moved to Hook, Hampshire, England when Justin was five years old. He started taking up the game seriously at Tylney Park Golf Club where he later played a +3 handicap at the tender age of only 14. The members clearly saw the talent this young boy possessed, but little would they know that he would reach the summit of the golfing world more than once in his lifetime.

His career started slowly, missing cuts in all of his first 21 career starts. Despite the slow start, Rose finally made his breakthrough when he won on the European Tour in his country of birth, South Africa, at the Dunhill Championship in 2002 and followed it up with three more victories later that year. Rose would go on to a career high 12^th place on the official world golf rankings in late 2007, becoming the highest ranking British golfer. Justin Rose is well known for his consistent play on tour by his fellow competitors as his track record suggests over the years, but as top players would say: “Your legacy is not complete until you hoisted a Major Championship.”

On 16 June 2013, Rose won his maiden major championship at the U.S Open at Merion Golf club by two strokes over Phil Mickelson and Jason Day. He also ended a 17 year major drought for the English since Sir Nick Faldo’s win at the 1996 Masters, securing his place in the book as one of the world’s best golfers.

The 2016 Rio Olympics marked the return of golf to the Games since its inception in 1900 and became the primary focus of many of the world’s finest players for the 2016 season. On the opening day, Rose became the first player in the Olympics to record a hole in one, later described as an inspirational moment for all British athletes during the 2016 games. He would go on to win the gold medal over fellow competitor and close friend Hendrik Stenson and would be the first to do so after 112 years. Justin Rose would later comment on the gold medal as the proudest moment of his career.

Justin Rose had now gone on to a major championship and earned a gold medal at the Rio Games, but there was still something missing in his illustrious career: the position as world number one. Dustin Johnson started the 2018 season as world number one after a remarkable 2017 season. Johnson made a strong opening statement that a number one ranking he has held for nearly a year might be difficult to take away.

The first win of the season for now 38 year old Rose came at the Fort Worth Invitational in May, jump starting the most successful year of his career with 19 starts in the season, three victories, three runner up spots, 11 top tens, and 15 top 25 places, racking up $8,130,678 for his efforts along the way. In September, Rose finished second at the Dell Technologies Championship and lost a playoff to Keegan Bradley at the BMW Championship. That finish moved him to world number one in the official rankings. The next week, Rose finished T4 at the Tour Championship to win the season-long FedEx Cup and $ 10,000,000. The world number one spot circulated between the trio of Rose, Koepka, and Johnson for the next couple of weeks until Justin “Rose” to the top of the rankings yet again after winning the Turkish airlines open, a Rolex Series event, in November 2018.

Ariya Jutanugarn

Ariya Jutanugarn was just 11 years old when she qualified for the Honda LPGA classic, making her the youngest player in history to play in a LPGA event. It is safe to say that big things were on the horizon for this young lady, and it was there for everyone to see. But where did it all start for this young prodigy?

Ariya was born in Bangkok, Thailand on 23 November 1995. She grew up in a golfing family with both her parents owning and running a local Pro shop at the Rose Garden Golf course just outside of Bangkok. Growing up she had the perfect playing partner in her older sister, Moriya, who is also a professional golfer. The sisters would regularly travel and compete in different tournaments with their parents who would act as mentors and help the girls out where they could. Until this day, her parents manage all business and financial matters on tour.

In 2011 and 2012, she was the recipient of the prestigious AFGA award for the best female player of the year along with Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson who took home the men’s division and Cristie Kerr and Paula Creamer in the women’s division for their early childhood careers. She turned professional at the end of 2012 and joined the Ladies European Tour in 2013. Within her first seven starts on both the LET and LPGA tours, she got five top-four finishes. Not so long after that impressive start, with momentum on her side she picked up her first professional win at the Lalla Meryem cup in Morocco. The celebrations were cut short when she severely injured her shoulder chasing her sister around during a practice round which required corrective surgery. She would later say that she felt that age was on her side, which made the healing easier and quicker.

Ariya successfully gained her 2015 LPGA card by finishing T-3 in the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament, making her dream of playing in the States a reality. It was in 2016 at the Yokohama Tire LPGA Classic that she got her maiden tour victory and also became the first Thai golfer to win an LPGA Tour. This was not only a big step for her as a player but also for the country of Thailand as a whole. The taste of victory in a foreign country felt so good that she went on to win the next two LPGA tournaments, becoming the first player in history to win three consecutive titles. She topped off the year by winning the Women’s British Open, and all of that at the tender age of 20.

These achievements propelled her to the top of the money list rankings and second in the official women’s golf rankings.

The 2017 season did not start well for the young golfer who missed five cuts and withdrew from a tournament in a seven tournament stretch. This did not stop her from achieving two wins that year, three runner up finishes, and a total of 10 top-10 appearances that saw her win more than $1,500,000 for the second time in her career. Not only that but she took the top spot from New Zealand’s Lydia Ko, who had held the position for the past 85 weeks. At 21 years, 6 months and 20 days old, Jutanugarn became the second-youngest player in LPGA history and the third-youngest player, male or female, to reach number one in the history of professional golf. She is the first golfer from Thailand, male or female, to earn the title of World Number One.

Jutanugarn has produced electrifying form on the LPGA Tour this year, winning three times and recording 12 additional top-10 finishes in 25 starts. She claimed her first victory of the season in May at the Kingsmill Championship presented by GEICO, then added a second just two starts later at the US Women's Open, where she edged out Hyo Joo Kim after four extra holes to secure the second major title of her career. Another win followed for Jutanugarn at the Aberdeen Standard Investments Ladies Scottish Open in July. At only 22 years old, Ariya Jutanugarn can easily become the most successful golfer to ever play this game and the golfing world will keep a close eye on this young lady during the rest of her career.

By Chris Marais, PGA Professional