“I’m going to remember this week mostly for that,” McIlroy said. “Your mind can go one of two ways when you start like that, and automatically I thought about Tom Kim at Greensboro and the fact that he won after starting with a quad. I could have easily thought the other way and thought, I’ve got no chance now; what am I doing here?”

(Speaking of strong finishes, McIlroy ended the year as golf’s undisputed No. 1. He regained the top spot in the Official World Golf Ranking with his victory in THE CJ CUP in South Carolina and then added the DP World Tour’s season-long points title to his FedExCup.)

If Kim inspired McIlroy, then perhaps McIlroy inspired Fred Couples.

In the fall, proving that the never-say-die trend was viable on PGA TOUR Champions, too, Couples, 63, double-bogeyed his very first hole of the SAS Championship. Two days later, he birdied 12 of his last 14 holes, including the last seven, to card a final-round 60 and win for the first time in five years. He also beat his age by three.

“The guy’s just a freak,” said his fill-in caddie, Griffin Flesch.

It was Zalatoris, though, who built the coolest monument to patience, resilience, and hard work. He had lost playoffs at the Farmers and PGA. He had faced a 15-footer at the last to force a playoff at the U.S. Open but missed. He parted with his longtime caddie, also a good friend, and hired Joel Stock, Ben Crane’s old sidekick. Zalatoris’ year was so full of heartache it was starting to sound like a country and western song.

Everything came together for him, though, at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in August. After burying exactly the type of do-or-die putt he’d previously missed – twice, as fate would have it, once in regulation and once in the playoff, both at the 18th hole – Zalatoris outlasted Sepp Straka with a bogey on the third extra hole in Memphis. The tears flowed.

“It’s kind of hard to say ‘about time’ when it’s your second year on TOUR,” Zalatoris said, “but about time.”

And that was just it, not just for him but also the others who outworked and outlasted their own missteps – the awful starts, tough finishes, long waits, or some combination of the three. “Time is on my side,” the Rolling Stones sang. Zalatoris and company lived that lyric in 2022.