How the Waste Management Open went off the rails in 2024

The past 12 months had it all — crazy winning streaks, new major champs, a major-week arrest (!) and more. With 2025 on the horizon, our writers are looking back at the most memorable moments from 2024.

No. 15 — Charley Hull goes viral
No. 14 — LIV, LPGA CEOs say goodbye
No. 13 — Solheim Cup parking fiasco

How the WM Phoenix Open went off the rails in 2024

Nick Taylor won the 2024 WM Phoenix Open in thrilling fashion, besting Charley Hoffman in a playoff to claim his fourth Tour title. Most years in the desert, a journeyman’s win in extra time would be a heartwarming story that put a punctuation mark on a successful week. However, 2024 was anything but an ordinary year at TPC Scottsdale.

The 2024 WM Phoenix Open will go down in infamy — and almost entirely for what happened outside the ropes.

The annual early-season Tour stop in Scottsdale, Ariz. has long been known as the biggest party in golf. With plenty of boozed-up fans and monstrous stadium builds — headlined by the stands surrounding the 16th hole — the Phoenix Open is unlike any other tournament in golf.

This reputation — while rowdy — has largely not caused any major issues in the tournament’s nearly century-long history. Sure, there have been minor heckling incidents and the occasional over-served patron, but for the most part, the fun has been relatively harmless.

That all changed in 2024.

As the tournament has grown in popularity over the years, the identity of the event has shifted. What used to be a golf tournament played in a party-like atmosphere has turned into a rager with a golf tournament attached. If you arrived at TPC Scottsdale just to watch some golf this past February, you were in the minority.

The 2024 Wm Phoenix Open actually started somewhat tame. Thursday and Friday featured crummy weather (by Scottsdale standards) and it helped keep the crowds somewhat subdued. When play was suspended on Friday evening, there was optimism the weekend would go off without a hitch. The weekend, however, quickly turned into an unmitigated disaster.

The gates opened early on Saturday morning, and the fans quickly got to work pounding drinks. It didn’t take long before things got rowdy.

Social media exploded with videos of fans stumbling down the soggy hills. Grown men were photographed passed out under trees and the heckling of golfers from outside the ropes became more and more common.

GOLF’s Claire Rogers was on the ground and had this to say about what she saw:

“I observed more chaos in the last eight hours than I have cumulatively in the last decade of my life. I saw men bleeding from the face, people napping on muddy hills and adults knocking each other over because they couldn’t walk straight. Picture the first few minutes of trying to exit a sold-out concert and multiply it by 15. That’s where we were at.”

One viral clip showed two-time major winner Zach Johnson confronting a group of fans after the heckling became too much to bear. He later told a reporter he wasn’t sure he’d ever return to the event.

“At some point — I don’t know what the line is, but you have people falling out of the rafters, you have fights in the stands. It’s to the point where now, how do you reel it in? Because it’s taken on a life of its own,” Johnson said. “I think the Thunderbirds probably need to do something about it. I’m assuming they’re ashamed. Because at some point, somebody’s either gonna really, really get hurt or worse.”

The 16th hole, long known as the rowdiest hole on Tour, featured plenty of shenanigans as well, with one fan injured falling from the grandstands while another stormed the green and dove into a bunker. Severe crowding in various bottlenecks around the course prompted officials to cut through fences as crowd safety became a concern.

“I definitely started to feel like I was stuck in an overcrowded fraternity basement by mid-afternoon,” Rogers reported. “I spoke with a member of the security team, and there was real concern that people would get seriously injured, especially because so many spectators were getting stuck in the crowds.”

By mid-afternoon, tournament officials took two drastic measures to mitigate the chaos. First, they closed the gates to any fans trying to enter the event. And second, they temporarily suspended the sale of alcohol.

Tournament officials released a statement addressing the chaos the following day:

“As an organization, our fans and their safety is our top priority. Due to steady rainfall in Scottsdale this week that created deteriorating course conditions, we unfortunately had to close the gates at the tournament entrance and stop allowing fans to enter the golf course on Saturday afternoon. The stadium-style course layout at TPC Scottsdale which features large banks for crowds to stand and sit, were soggy and unusable. This pushed patrons who would normally congregate in those areas into high-foot-traffic areas causing severe congestion at key points on event grounds including the entrance and exit. After consulting with event partners and officials, we made the decision to temporarily close the tournament entrance to alleviate crowding in those areas in the interest of public safety. We know that fans with Saturday tickets were turned away. The Thunderbirds as an organization are gathering more details and discussing options on how to remedy their concerns. To the greatest fans in golf, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused as we always strive to create the best event possible.”

The Thunderbirds were true to their word in the weeks to come as they outlined a variety of changes to their operating procedures for the years ahead. However, the damage to the tournament’s reputation is sure to be long-lasting.

“From the videos that I’ve seen, those instances are unfortunate, but I don’t think it’s a standalone, it’s been like that for a bit,” Taylor said. “But I think the cat’s probably out of the bag.”

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