1)
For the first time since the inception of the Masters in 1934, all four majors were won by players younger than 30. The value in the No. 1 statistic of the year is just how unthinkable it is that we have never seen it before. For the first time in the four-major era of men’s golf, all four winners in a calendar year were 29 or younger. Fifteen times in the modern era, three majors had been won by players in their 20s—but never all four.
It also makes it six different major winners in a row—all under the age of 30—the first time the men’s game has experienced that since the inaugural Masters Tournament.
2)
For 40 years, nobody had opened a tournament with triple bogey or worse and won on the PGA TOUR. Then it happened twice in the same month.
The PGA TOUR has been keeping hole-by-hole data for the last 40 seasons. From 1983 through July 2022, in more than 1,700 official stroke-play events contested, there was not a single instance of a player starting a tournament with triple bogey or worse and going on to win. Then, in August, it happened twice!
At the Wyndham Championship, Tom Kim began his week with quadruple bogey. Incredibly, he went on to win by five shots after a leaderboard climb that featured a front-nine 27 on Sunday. Three weeks later at the TOUR Championship, Rory McIlroy, who was already ceding six “Starting Strokes” to Scottie Scheffler, opened his tournament with triple bogey and still won.
3)
Scottie Scheffler went from winless on the PGA TOUR to No. 1 in the world in 42 days.
The spring of 2022 undoubtedly belonged to Scottie Scheffler, whose lightning ascent to the peak of the game rivaled any great run by a single player in recent years. In the hours before the Super Bowl began, Scheffler was arguably the best player in the world without a PGA TOUR win to his credit. 42 days after winning the WM Phoenix Open, he was No. 1 on the Official World Golf Ranking. It was by far the shortest amount of time between a first PGA TOUR or DP World Tour victory and reaching the top spot—the previous mark was held by Tiger Woods in 1997, at 252 days.
Scheffler was the first player to make his debut as the OWGR No. 1 at Augusta since Ian Woosnam in 1991. Just like Woosnam, Scheffler went on to win.
4)
Matt Fitzpatrick joined Jack Nicklaus as the only men to win the U.S. Amateur and U.S.
Open at the same course. Nine years after becoming the first Englishman to win the U.S. Amateur since 1911, Matt Fitzpatrick returned to The Country Club, site of that victory, and assembled a final-round ball striking show for the ages. Fitzpatrick hit 17 greens in regulation on his way to winning the U.S. Open—one of just three players in the last 30 years to hit 17 or more greens in the final round of a major championship victory. Fitzpatrick is one of just two players in history to win the U.S. Amateur and U.S. Open at the same venue. Jack Nicklaus also accomplished the feat, doing so at Pebble Beach.
5)
Justin Thomas staged the largest final-round comeback to win a major since 1999.
Trailing Mito Pereira by seven shots entering the final round of the PGA Championship, Justin Thomas needed something incredible on Sunday at Southern Hills if he were to pick up his second major title. Thomas got it—gaining nearly 3.5 strokes tee-to-green on the back nine—and his final-round 67 forced a playoff he would win over Will Zalatoris.
The seven-shot final-round comeback tied the third largest by a men’s major champion in the modern era. It was the largest to win a major since Paul Lawrie at the 1999 Open—who was 10 back of Jean van de Velde.