headline: Rory McIlroy, Matt Fitzpatrick, Leona Maguire, Charley Hull among 2022 winners
text: With an English winner of the US Open, a Northern Irishman returning to the top of the world ranking as well as English, Scottish and Irish victories on the LPGA, 2022 has been a memorable year for UK and Irish golf.
  Yes, this period will be remembered for the unseemly and uncivil war that has followed the arrival to the professional game of LIV Golf, but we can still look back on numerous thrilling highlights.
  Most notable was Matt Fitzpatrick's emotional triumph at Brookline when he became the first Englishman since Justin Rose in 2013 to land America's national championship.
  A stunning nine-iron from a fairway bunker that set up what proved a championship-winning par was the shot of the year by some distance. We relived Fitzpatrick's maiden major victory in detail here on BBC Sounds.
  Would Rory McIlroy have swapped years with his Ryder Cup team-mate from Sheffield? After all Fitzpatrick added to his major tally, something the Northern Irishman wanted to do more than anything else in the past year.
  , McIlroy can reflect on a hugely creditable body of work in 2022. The 33-year-old was no worse than eighth in any of the majors, was runner up at the Masters - his best Augusta finish - and nearly won The Open at St Andrews.
  From the moment he switched golf balls after missing the cut at the Texas Open the week before the Masters he was relentlessly consistent, living on leaderboards week in, week out.
  McIlroy claimed three PGA Tour wins, won the FedEx Cup and DP World Tour rankings and only Scottie Scheffler collected more world ranking points in 2022.
  26-year-old from New Jersey put together an astonishing first half to the year with his debut tour title, the Phoenix Open coming in February and followed by victories at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, WGC Matchplay and Masters.
  Scheffler racked up three more runner-up finishes, including a share of second with Will Zalatoris behind Fitzpatrick at Brookline last June. 
  rformance came a month after Justin Thomas landed an overdue second major at the US PGA Championship at Southern Hills. The Tulsa course was perhaps the best set up of the men's majors, while a parched St Andrews' Old Course proved itself still capable of identifying the world's best players in a thrilling 150th Open.
  With nine holes to go McIlroy seemed destined for his fifth major having steadily seen off playing partner and 54 hole co-leader Viktor Hovland.  ut his earlier failure to capitalise on birdie chances at the third and ninth proved costly.
  Up ahead, Cameron Smith went on a charge for the ages.  
  Aussie is arguably the greatest shotmaker in the game and the deftness of his touch and killer putting propelled him to a championship clinching 64, edging out Cameron Young who eagled the last.
  It was a glorious tournament, befitting the 150th running of the game's oldest major. Smith later defected to LIV as their biggest and most significant signing, but the R&A have already said he will be welcomed back to defend his title in 2023 at Royal Liverpool.
  AIG Women's Open broke new ground, staged at that former bastion of the male game Muirfield for the first time, and the championship proved equally dramatic. 
  g off late to accommodate US television schedules nearly backfired when the popular South African Ashleigh Buhai won in near darkness and with too few spectators still present.
  33-year-old from Johannesburg needed four extra holes to defeat Korea's Women's PGA champion In Gee Chun to claim only her second LPGA victory and first major title.
  Australia's Minjee Lee and American Jennifer Kupcho produced dominant displays to win the US Open and Chevron Championship respectively while Brooke Henderson overcame the enforced need to use a shorter driver to land the Evian title.
  In a year that saw New Zealand's ever popular Lydia Ko return to the top of the world rankings and American Nelly Korda overcome a nasty blood clot that required surgery, UK and Irish players also prospered on the LPGA Tour.
  Solheim Cup heroine Leona Maguire proved her world class credentials by winning early at the Drive On Championship.  
  , in a glorious autumn, Charley Hull earned a long overdue second victory on the main women's tour and Yorkshire's Jodi Ewart Shadoff landed her maiden title before Scotland's Gemma Dryburgh won the Japan Classic.
  All four players will harbour hopes of starring in a European Solheim Cup defence in 2023.  
  matches between Europe and the United States will form a big part of next year's narrative with home Solheim and Ryder Cups being played in consecutive weeks in late September.
  For the Ryder Cup watch to see if the likes of Seamus Power and Sepp Straka can capitalise on superb years in 2022 to force their ways into Luke Donald's European team.
  And how will the line-ups be affected by LIV? The United States look the more inconvenienced with Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed and Bryson DeChambeau rendered unavailable for defecting to the breakaway series.
  European players competing on the LIV circuit will find out their status with the DP World Tour after a legal hearing in February. That promises to be the first truly significant date in golf's calendar for 2023.