By Larry Canning
The Larry’s for 2024
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to another celebration of golfing greatness from the year of 2024.
I give you…. The Larry’s!!
Again this year we see some traditional well-worn but always relevant awards plus a couple of new ones, I suspect will become classics.
So lets begin –
The player with the most Dapper-ness.
The nominees are –
Aaron Baddeley has, as far as I know, always been of very strong Christian faith, as have a number of other PGA Tour Players and it’s clear their belief helps them to cope with the pressure of playing golf on the world’s biggest stages. So it’s no surprise to see Badds latest hairstyle looking very much like every actor I’ve ever seen who has played Jesus. That’s if Jesus was playing golf in a nice pair of well ironed, tailored trousers and a Nike shirt.
Is there any look more Aussie than the good old “Mullet”? And, is there anyone more proud to be an Aussie than Cam Smith? Sure it’s not for every high profile Australian. Can you imagine Peter Dutton rocking up to the Senate with one? Or for that matter, Kel Nagle back in his day, walking onto the tee at Royal Melbourne with a mullet dripping out from under his Sporte Leisure Bucket Hat?
Of course the original Mullet wearing, Open Champion was Jon Daly who like Cam, chose St Andrews to put it on display but it’s not his hair style that sees the big unit as our third nominee, it’s his beard. As I’m writing, Christmas is just around the corner and if you whack a red outfit on Jon he could easily help Santa deliver the presents and that makes him the winner of “The Larry”. Mind you, you might need to replace the milk and biscuits with a litre bottle of coke and a pack of Marlborough.
The Biggest Upset of the year
The nominees are –
Canadian Legend Mike Weir was the captain of the ill-fated international side for the Presidents Cup played at Royal Montreal and his first task was to choose the final 6 players to make up the 12. American Skipper, Jim Furyk wisely picked the numbers 7,8,9,10,11,12 from their qualifying list but Mike “Weird” selected 7,9,10,11,14,15. Now you’d have to consider numbers 12 and 13 – Canadians Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin would have been disappointed but what in the hell happened to “8” – Aussie Cam Davis?
Does the number 8 represent something demonic in Canada or do they have an 8th deadly sin we don’t have here – like “talent”? Or maybe Mike just felt threatened by a right hander who can also swing the club left-handed better than he ever could?
Ryggs Johnston is probably the most unheralded player to ever win the Australian Open. When you look at the names on the Stonehaven Cup like Gene Sarazan, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Peter Thompson, Kel Nagle, Gary Player, Rory McIlroy, Jordon Spieth, Greg Norman, Tom Watson…. Ryggs Johnston?…. Hang on. Don’t get me wrong Ladies and Gents, Ryggs is a very talented striker and beat some bloody good players down the stretch to secure a deserved victory but spending five months this year swinging a machete and wearing khaki shorts and long socks through places like Peru, Columbia, Ecuador on the PGA Latino America Tour wasn’t exactly seeing his name going viral on my Ladbrokes app as a potential winner.
Scotty Scheffler, now there’s a name we’re all familiar with – is our third Nomination and yes… we all know where this is going, right? Seeing a golf pro locked up in jail doesn’t really surprise me in fact I probably should have been incarcerated for bad language or assault on a beautiful golf course with a deadly pitching wedge but hand-cuffing the world’s number one player who also happens to be the nicest human on Earth was more than a minor upset for 2024.
For this reason, Scotty takes “The Larry” for his role in the “Biggest Upset of 2024”.
The worst fist pump award
This was hands down the most obvious winner so there were no other nominations
The winner of “The Larry” is rising star, Akshay Bhatia for his performance during the Texas Open where he made birdie on the last hole to put him a play-off with Denny McCarthy and celebrated with an aggressive fist pump, discolating his left shoulder. Lucky the Physio was still at the course and was able to pop it back into its socket allowing Akshay to win the play-off when McCarthy rinsed his pill into H20 short of the green.
Our final “Larry” goes to the player with the Funkiest name
One of the quotes of the year came from a Japanese secondary Tour player during the Elite Grips Challenge Tournament on Japan’s Secondary Tour. The 33 year old was punching his pill out from under a tree when it struck a limb, plum in the centre and ricocheted back, striking him in the groin: “Oh yes, I’m very lucky it hit me just beneath my important bits,” said a smiling Kentaro Hitguchi.
As we know golf is a game of “Maybe if I had just…..?” particularly for young’uns trying to take that next step up to a bigger tour.
In the case of this young 23 year-old Alabama-ian who easily could have gained a Korn ferry Tour by finishing in the top 3 of the final event. He was in a tie for 3rd with 5 holes to play only to bogey 4 of them and miss his chance – “I just cant help thinking what could have happened if I’d played those last 5 holes better…. I will always wonder if I’d gained my card” said Johhny Ponder.
It was on one of the worst days of his career, moaned this hapless battler after having to withdraw from the final tournament of the Chinese PGA Tour season. “It’s been another tough year but all I needed to do to keep my card was to make the cut this week, but an abscess on my back tooth was just giving me too much pain” said the luckless Holin Fang.
I feel your pain, Holin and hopefully this “Larry” award will help with the agony.
Happy New Year my loyal readers! May all your punch outs avoid injury.
