TORONTO — While professional golf's future is as uncertain now as it was a year ago given the pace of negotiations between the PGA Tour and the Saudi backers of LIV Golf, one thing was made crystal clear in 2024 — Scottie Scheffler is the man to beat.

Scheffler became the first player since Tiger Woods in 2007 to win seven or more times in a PGA Tour season and added an Olympic gold medal in a year where he spent each week as the No 1 player in the world and 72 minutes behind bars.

In a shocking turn of events, Scheffler was handcuffed and booked into a Kentucky jail for an alleged assault on a police officer outside the PGA Championship. A mug shot of a bearded Scheffler in an orange jumpsuit is one of the sport's enduring images of 2024.

Scheffler was released in time to tee off and the charges against him were dropped 12 days later.

By the time the season ended, Scheffler, 28, had wins at the Masters, Players Championship, Tour Championship and against elite fields in four PGA Tour signature events.

At the US Open, Rory McIlroy endured heartbreak as he led by two shots with five holes to play, but missed a pair of short putts over the final three holes to squander his best chance to end a 10-year wait for a fifth major title.

McIlroy's woes, which led to a three-week break to recover, opened the door for LIV's Bryson DeChambeau, whose near-perfect bunker shot at the final hole — "probably the best shot of my life" — set up the winning par putt.

Xander Schauffele, who began the year as arguably the best active golfer without a major, finally broke through at the PGA Championship, where he birdied the last hole to win by a stroke, before winning the British Open.

In the women's game, Nelly Korda won seven times, including her second major, clinched the LPGA Player of the Year award and was on the winning US Solheim Cup team.

Away from the course, the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund offered little evidence of being any closer to finalizing a deal that would unify the professional game.

The two sides announced a bombshell framework agreement in June 2023, but the original deadline to finalize the pact by the end of that year passed without a deal in place. And, while negotiations have continued, there has been no sign of progress.

When the calendar flips to 2025, the focus of the golf world will be on the launch of Woods' and McIlroy's high-tech indoor simulator league, which will feature six teams of four PGA Tour players competing in a fast-paced form of team golf.

The year's marquee team event, however, will be the Sept 26-28 Ryder Cup in New York, where the United States will look to reclaim the trophy from Europe in the biennial matchplay competition.

Reuters