The sport is lucky those events delivered. Because outside of them – especially on the men’s side – it was nothing more than lacklustre week to week.

Most of my favourite moments came from the women’s side of the game; a consistently better product throughout the year. As golf fans, we have the best lining up against the best most weeks. It was rarely a diluted product, unlike what we continue to see in the men’s game, thanks to this continual divide where the fans are just collateral damage.

We came together for the Olympics and put money aside for national pride and history. Most of the best players were there, which was refreshing to see. I wrote in a column prior to the event on how the format needs to be shaken up. I am happy to eat my words there; I could not have been more wrong.

Lydia Ko’s Olympic gold and victory at the AIG Women’s Open at the Old Course is a tough quinella to topple. Unless you are Scottie Scheffler, of course, who claimed another green jacket to go with his own gold in Paris.

Watching Steph Kyriacou come agonisingly close at the Evian in France stung, but it kept my eyeballs stuck to the screen. Following Nelly Korda’s mind-blowing run of five wins on the trot, I tuned in every Monday morning.

Seeing the Cam Smith-led Ripper GC triumph in Adelaide, blockbuster viewing.

"In a year of sporadic highs and lows, golf’s biggest events and stars delivered, and the game is lucky they did because it pulled a blindfold over the bigger issue, which continues to cast a cloud of uncertainty over what the future looks like." - Callum Hill.

There were other standouts in 2024, like Xander Schauffele. But this column isn’t about comparing performances of the game’s best. It is about talking about moments which made me or didn’t make me feel something as a golf fan. 

The four men’s majors were fantastic and saved what was otherwise a stale and boring year of golf in which we see the sport’s best playing against each other so infrequently. The governing bodies got three out of four venues spot on (sorry, Valhalla) and three (Schauffele twice) more than worthy champions.

I feel like I felt Rory’s agony at Pinehurst.

I rode the emotional wave of that final round at Augusta.

The Players? Nothing. It can’t be classed as the best field in golf when only half of the best players are eligible.

Before LIV came to the party, I felt like we were spoilt with these finishes regularly, but maybe I am reflecting with rose-tinted glasses; the men’s professional game has never been worse off than it is now.

How do we fix it? Put egos aside; the game and the fans should be first. Bring the tours together in some capacity. Let them mix and mingle. I am sick of writing and arguing about it, and mostly getting bored watching a sport I have never stopped loving.

In a year of sporadic highs and lows, golf’s biggest events and stars delivered, and the game is lucky they did because it pulled a blindfold over the bigger issue, which continues to cast a cloud of uncertainty over what the future looks like. As we move into the third week of 2025, let’s hope the fans are put before the cheque book.