{"id":394921,"date":"2026-01-06T08:14:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T08:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/394921\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T08:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T08:14:15","slug":"woods-mcilroy-scheffler-korda-hull-an-a-z-of-golf-in-2026-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/394921\/","title":{"rendered":"Woods, McIlroy, Scheffler, Korda, Hull &#8211; an A-Z of golf in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Will Shinnecock Hills again prove a controversial major venue? The past two US Opens there have been extraordinarily eventful.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In 2004 the greens became so hard they were almost unplayable and in 2018 Mickelson resorted to hitting a putt on the move, preferring a two-shot penalty to hitting his ball off the 13th green. What will June bring at the venerable but capricious Long Island venue?<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Could Tiger Woods be in the field? Sadly the 15-times major-winning great is still recovering from his latest back surgery. His influence will surely be greater off the course &#8211; planning a revamped PGA Tour schedule and perhaps taking over the US Ryder Cup captaincy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The US Women&#8217;s Open will be a fascinating week at LA&#8217;s Riviera Country Club, a great venue that will hold the golf events at the 2028 Olympics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Brendan Valdes is another young American left hander worth watching as he embarks on a full PGA Tour season for the first time. The 22-year-old enjoyed a stellar college career at Auburn where he amassed a record 558 birdies and already has a tour top-10 to his name.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The AIG Women&#8217;s Open returns to Royal Lytham and St Anne&#8217;s at the end of July, where Georgia Hall was the champion in 2018. Could this be a forerunner to the Lancashire links staging the men&#8217;s Open which was last held there 14 years ago?  We still do not know where the 2028 championship will be held.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">X has to be Xander Schauffele because, well, where else could I go? But the American must be due to rediscover the form that brought two majors in 2024 and render last year&#8217;s injury-induced inconsistency a mere blip in a fine career to date.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Cameron Young showed at the Ryder Cup that he is built for the big time. Ensconced in the world&#8217;s top 20 and now with a long awaited tour win under his belt, expect the New Yorker to push for top-10 recognition in 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">And with the sad recent death of Fuzzy Zoeller, Will Zalatoris must carry the banner at the end of the alphabet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Having returned from his latest back surgery, at an event in South Africa at the end of last year, there are many fans desperate to see a sustained recovery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The popular 29-year-old says his latest return is a &#8220;rebirth&#8221; and is now hoping to add to the six major top-10s he accrued between 2020 and 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Will Shinnecock Hills again prove a controversial major venue? The past two US Opens there have been extraordinarily&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-394921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}