What golf will look like in 2021

There is light at the end of the tunnel

What golf will look like in 2021
(Tim Goode/PA Wire)


For the purposes of this article, I’m ignoring Covid-19. I realise it will probably be the other side of Easter before the vaccines have had sufficient impact for our lives to be able to resemble anything like the way we lived before last March but there is light at the end of the tunnel and we have reason to hope it’s not an onrushing train. So here goes…

January: Tradition would demand that President Trump attends Joe Biden’s inauguration ceremony as his successor but, as you may have noticed, The Donald has not taken well the news that he was annihilated by over seven million votes. Accordingly, on January 20 he will be playing golf on one of his courses in Florida and he will tweet after the round that he broke the course record.


February: Bryson DeChambeau announces he now weighs 20 stone and can carry a ball 400 yards through the air with his 48-inch driver.

March: The R&A and the USGA announce they have decided on their next move following the publication of their ‘Distance Insights Project’ last February. There will be a further period of consultation. No time limit has been set for this.



April: Brooks Koepka wins the Masters. “Three down, one to go,” he says of his bid to complete the career Grand Slam.

May: Dustin Johnson wins the USPGA Championship. “Three down, one to go,” he says of his bid to complete the career Grand Slam.

June: Phil Mickelson misses the cut at the US Open. “Three down, still one to go,” he says of his bid to complete the career Grand Slam.


July: Eighteen years after Thomas Bjorn failed to seal the deal at Royal St George’s, 20-year-old Rasmus Hojgaard becomes the first Dane to claim a major championship when he wins the Open.

August: Tiger Woods wins his 83rd PGA Tour title, thus breaking out of the record he shared with Sam Snead. “Still three majors shy of Jack, though,” he says. “It is what it is.”

September: Patrick Reed is accused of cheating at the Ryder Cup. He says it’s all a terrible mistake. He realises that matchplay is different from strokeplay but he had simply forgotten that while putts could be conceded you couldn’t give a gimme to yourself.

October: The European Tour announces a furtherance of its “strategic alliance” with the PGA Tour. It will close its offices at Wentworth because “there doesn’t seem much point in keeping them and Florida isn’t that far anyway”.

November: It is announced that the 2022 staging of the DP World Tour Championship will be played in Arizona. “Hey, it’s still the desert,” says a spokesperson for the strategic alliance.

December: Joe Biden plays golf at Seminole in Florida. He declares it’s his fifth round of the year. Donald Trump tweets: “Slacker!” Soon after, Trump tweets again: “Seminole is a course for losers. Not as good as mine. No waterfall. Sad!”



You can follow Robert Green on Twitter @robrtgreen and enjoy his other blog f-factors.com plus you can read more by him on golf at robertgreengolf.com

Updated: June 5, 2024