This time last year, Scottie Scheffler had never won a PGA Tour event, was outside the top 10 of the Official World Golf Rankings, not in Hawaii for the Tournament of Champions and had only earned $7.5 million. Now? He’s a four-time winner, the reigning Masters champion, has the second shortest odds of anyone to win the 2023 Tournament of Champions and has tripled his career earnings to just over $22M. Oh, and if he finishes near the top of this week’s event, he’ll return to No. 1 in the world for what would be his 31st week.

Needless to say, things have changed.

It begs the question, though, of who we’re overlooking right now. More specifically: Who is the Scottie Scheffler of 2023? The player who will be sitting here this time next year, perhaps not with the same bona fides Scheffler put together in 2022, but with a resume that’s far more complete than it is currently constituted and a name that is far more familiar in golf households than it is currently.

Perhaps there are several candidates to fill this role in 2023, but none are as blatantly obvious as the golfer who mostly fits the Scheffler statistical profile, nearly won multiple majors in 2022 and is coming off his first American team event just like Scheffler was a year ago.

The most likely candidate to replicate Scottie Scheffler’s 2022 in 2023 is, of course, Cam Young.

Young has yet to win on the PGA Tour, but he’s an elite ball-striker (13th over the last 12 months), and he’s in contention a lot. In 2022 alone he finished second or third in the following events.

• Open Championship
• Genesis Invitational
• Rocket Mortgage Classic
• Wells Fargo Championship
• PGA Championship
• RBC Heritage

This is easy to say now, but if, say, 10 strokes go differently, we’re talking about Cam Young having Scottie Scheffler’s 2022 in 2022 and not in 2023.

Young fits the modern mold, too. He’s mega long off the tee — statistician Joseph LaMagna has called him the best driver in the world — and good enough elsewhere to be extraordinarily dangerous. His finish dispersion is great, too, in that he doesn’t finish T11 very often. In 25 starts last season, he finished in the top three seven times and missed the cut seven times.

That’s a perfect ratio, and it has led Data Golf to the following conclusion, which it put forth in a recent newsletter.

Young is one of the best active players without a PGA Tour win: our models estimate that his PGA Tour performances have been good enough to expect 1.6 PGA Tour wins and 0.4 major wins. The only winless player with higher values in those two metrics is Tommy Fleetwood.

In other words, Cam Young is coming in 2023.

To drive home the point, consider that of the top 150 players in the world right now, Young is the 18th-best career ball-striker. The names ahead of him include Rory McIlroy, Sergio Garcia, Justin Thomas and Dustin Johnson. They are players who win a lot. Young has played so few rounds compared to the rest of those guys (for example: Young has played 87 measured ShotLink rounds compared to Xander Schauffele’s 405) that it’s easier to envision his win total catching up with everyone else than it is to envision him falling off the planet when it comes to his ball-striking numbers.

That’s not something rooted in statistical certainty — not that anything in golf truly is — but Young’s skillset doesn’t evaporate. Great short games, great putters, they come and go. The pop and then they disappear. Elite driving, being a top-five (perhaps top-three) driver in the world? That’s a sticky statistic.

Young seems to want the ball, too. He hit the lost shot of the year in 2022 when he made a two on the 72nd hole at St. Andrews during the Open Championship. It got sandwiched between Cam Smith’s victory and McIlroy’s defeat, but when he had to have a two, he stepped up and made it in a moment when he had to have it. He talked after that round about how he’s still learning to win at the highest level, and his Open success was part of that.

“I think I stuck to my plan and the process of what had gotten me there really well,” said Young. “And not necessarily that I didn’t at the PGA Championship, but I don’t know if I let it come to me as much as I did today. I tried as much as I could — watching [Cam Smith] make a million birdies in a row is in one sense good because it pushes you, and in another sense it’s hard to watch because you see him making putts, knowing that he’s kind of beating you.

“But, yeah, I think I was a little bit more patient today and I obviously was rewarded on 18, but just came up a little bit short.”

Coming up short was a theme for Young in 2022, which is not dissimilar to Scheffler’s 2021. Scheffler finished in the top eight seven times — including at three of the major championships — in 2021 without winning a single event. He had the highest expected win rate in 2021 (1.27 wins) of anyone who didn’t win a PGA Tour event. Young took that honor in 2022 at 1.20 (and 0.38 in majors, which is extremely high).

Add it all up, and Young is the obvious choice to have a Scheffler-like year in 2023. He’s not being talked about like he perhaps should be — this was true of Scheffler last year as well — but after he hits on one, two or even three big-time PGA Tour victories. All of that will change. Just like it did for the guy he’s now chasing.

Source link

Golf has never been in better hands as some of the biggest names in the sport are still on the younger side. Securely in the prime of their careers, these players have been able to etch their names into golf’s history books and will continue to add to their stories in the coming years. 

In 2022, all four major championship winners checked in as golfers under age 30, and the same would be true for 2021 if not for Phil Mickelson’s memorable PGA Championship victory at Kiawah Island. Dating back to 2017, 16 of the last 23 major championship winners were yet to reach 30 with outliers like Tiger Woods’ 2019 Masters triumph and Dustin Johnson’s green jacket win a year later.

Some of those also included Hideki Matsuyama and Brooks Koepka, who have since surpassed age 30. Patrick Cantlay is another player who recently celebrated his 30th birthday, and as such, will not be on the list below.

While the world of golf is divided, for this particular list, the focus remains on the PGA Tour. Cameron Smith should be among this group of players and Joaquin Niemann perhaps on the outskirts, but without playing against the best on a consistent basis, the water in which they tread has only become muddier.

Here’s a look at 10 best golfers under the age of 30 on the PGA Tour and what to expect from them in 2023.

Top 10 under 30

1. Jon Rahm (28): Three wins was considered a down year by most prognosticators, just not by Rahm himself. Winning the Mexico Open, Open de España and the DP World Tour Championship, the man who began 2022 as the world No. 1 ended his year winning three times in his last 14 worldwide starts. Making all four cuts in the major championships, the Spaniard’s best finish was T12 at the U.S. Open where he shot 5 over his last 36 holes. Contention and victory in major championships is the barometer in which success is defined for him moving forward — whether he likes it or not. If able to recreate his 2020-21 where in six major championships he captured five top-10 finishes, including his lone major title at the 2021 U.S. Open, there is a good chance Rahm returns to the top of the golf world in 2023.

2. Scottie Scheffler (26): His coming out party was the spring of 2022, but the rest of Scheffler’s year was still impressive. Winning four times in a six tournament stretch, the Texan captured a World Golf Championship, rose to world No. 1 and donned the green jacket all in less than two months. Scheffler went onto squander late leads at the Charles Schwab Challenge and the Tour Championship where he ultimately finished runner up. A third second-place finished occurred at the U.S. Open where had a near birdie miss on the 72nd hole dropped, a playoff with Matt Fitzpatrick would have been forced. The Presidents Cup was a letdown, but even the best players have lulls from time-to-time. Scheffler will be a fixture on this list for the foreseeable future and given the well-rounded nature of his game, additional major championship trophies are likely to be his.

3. Xander Schauffele (29): This past year was a transformative one for Schauffele, who much like Tony Finau was labeled as a player who shrivels down the stretch of big tournaments. Winning the Zurich Classic alongside Cantlay added to the bizarre nature in which he raised trophies (limited field, no cuts, The Olympics), but Schauffele added to his own total during the summer. Outlasting Sahith Theegala at the Travelers Championship, he returned to the winner’s circle again in his following start at the Scottish Open. A strong showing in the FedEx Cup Playoffs put a bow on a nice season, but similar to Rahm, the major championship acumen we are used to seeing was nowhere to be found. Since 2017, Schauffele has 15 top-20 finishes in 22 major championship appearances. With six of those coming in the form of top-five finishes — and two of those runners-up — Schauffele may have shed one label in 2022 but will likely add another in “best player without a major” in 2023 unless he does something, well, major.

4. Justin Thomas (29): Now 15 times a winner on the PGA Tour, Thomas is firmly among the elite in the game. Placing him fourth on the list may even be a bit harsh, but while the quality of his victories persist, the quantity has lagged behind. It took a herculean effort — and some help from Mito Pereira — at the PGA Championship to nab his second Wanamaker Trophy for his lone title of 2022. Outmanned by Sam Burns at the Valspar Championship and Rory McIlroy at the Canadian Open, Thomas put himself in contention enough to garner a multiple-win season, but was unable to do so. This marked the third season in the last four years where he came away with only one trophy. Those may consist of the 2022 PGA Championship and 2021 Players Championship; however, Thomas is too good a player to enter the winner’s circle one time a year. Expect this to change in 2023.

5. Collin Morikawa (25): Tell most players they would finish inside the top five in two of the four major championships, and they would take it and run. Morikawa? Not so much. Nearly tracking down Niemann at the Genesis Invitational, the two-time major champion looked prime to enter the winner’s circle in the early spring. Not to be, Morikawa finished solo fifth at the Masters before a relatively uneventful start to his summer. Fighting his swing, he arrived at The Country Club for the U.S. Open frustrated with the flight of his iron shots, only to be the 36-hole leader days later. A 7-over 77 in the third round derailed his chance to add the third leg of the career grand slam, but still he battled in the final round to finish T5. Without a worldwide win in over a year, Morikawa is remains a top-tier player. Given the quality of his irons and the implementation of a putting coach, he should have no problem ending this dry spell in 2023.

6. Matt Fitzpatrick (28): The perception of Fitzpatrick changed in 2022. Once a scrawny Englishman in need of a hot putting week to just contend, he transformed into a major champion wielding his driver with the best of the them. While it appeared to happen overnight, consistent speed training sessions and hard work were the cog for Fitzpatrick’s ascension. Joining Jack Nicklaus and Juli Inkster as the only players to win the U.S. Amateur and the U.S. Open on the same golf course, Fitzpatrick squashed the haters who questioned if he would ever win on the PGA Tour. In total, Fitzpatrick captured 17 top-25 finishes in 24 worldwide starts and showcased his upside that has been on full display in Europe since 2015.

7. Will Zalatoris (26): He is built for the moment, and while the bounces didn’t go his way for much of 2022, they finally did in the end. Zalatoris continued to be one of the best major championship competitors this past year as he lost in a playoff at the PGA Championship and fell one stroke short of Fitzpatrick at the U.S. Open. In 10 major championship appearances, he has three runners-up and three additional top-10 finishes. His ball-striking allows him to factor at difficult golf courses and it did just that at the St. Jude Championship in August. In unison with some timely putting, Zalatoris beat Sepp Straka in a playoff in Memphis to win his first PGA Tour title. The floodgates were promptly shut the following week when he was forced to withdraw during the BMW Championship due to a back injury, and he has not been seen in action since. Back injuries are always scary when discussing golfers, and Zalatoris will be no different. Possessing a wiry frame, he will make his return at the Tournament of Champions and hopefully put any health concerns in the rearview mirror.

8. Viktor Hovland (25): Simply put, Hovland wins. It may not be pretty, it may not be flashy, and it may not happen at the most prestigious tournaments, but still, the Norwegian finds a way to collect hardware on a consistent basis. That has to count for something. Since 2020, he has won seven times worldwide and 2022 showed us he may soon rise to the occasion in the biggest of championships. Alongside Rory McIlroy in the final pair in the final round of the 150th Open at St. Andrews, Hovland ultimately fell off the pace to finish T4. Experiencing his first taste of contention in a major championship, this should only aid him in his future endeavors. His short game has improved drastically from the low point of the final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational where he let that trophy slip from his grasp, and if it continues on this trajectory, Hovland’s underrated win total should only tick up.

9. Jordan Spieth (29): This time next year, he’ll be 30, but still Spieth finds his way onto this list. Since going through the lowest of lows from 2018-20, he has clawed his way back into relevance with wins at the 2021 Texas Open and 2022 RBC Heritage. A member of winning Ryder Cup and Presidents teams the last two years, the next step in the three-time major champion’s return to prominence is to bag a a big one. He has been close with a couple podium finishes in 2021 and given his improvements both off the tee and on approach in 2022, this upcoming year will say a lot about the state of Spieth’s place in the game. The putter will unquestionably have to be on better behavior, and if it is, Spieth could be on the cusp of his first multiple-win season since 2017.

10. Cameron Young (25): He will win in 2023. Finishing on the podium seven times in his rookie campaign — without getting over the hump once — Young consistently put himself in position to win golf tournaments. Variance, luck and perhaps some inexperience hindered his efforts to raise a trophy, but that will no longer be an appropriate excuse in 2023. Finishing second at the Genesis Invitational, third at the PGA Championship and second at The Open, his name became a staple on the first page of the leaderboard in some of the biggest events of the year. His father has left his post at Sleppy Hollow to join him on Tour on a full-time basis and perhaps this familiar face will propel Young to new heights and into the winner’s circle.

Honorable mentions: Sam Burns, Sungjae Im, Tom Kim

Source link

The final swing season of the PGA Tour is complete following the 2022 RSM Classic. Along with the conclusion of the fall swing comes a number of players who thrived and a list of player who … well, didn’t. While there are still competitive reps in the upcoming weeks on the DP World Tour, at the Hero World Challenge, QBE Shootout, The Match VII and PNC Championship, a bow has been put on the PGA Tour slate for the 2022 calendar year before play resumes at the Tournament of Champions in January.

This fall swing was inherently different from those of the past as modifications to the PGA Tour’s upcoming schedule and playoff structure heightened the intensity. With only 70 players gaining entry into the FedEx Cup Playoffs, and those falling outside the magic number eventually needing to vie for status, some saw this time of year as critical for their job security.

“It’s harder,” said Joel Dahmen of the new structure. “I mean, with the new system comes if you play really well, now you’re in that top tier, now you’re on the PGA Tour, not the PGB tour. The PGA Tour is really sweet right now and it’s the best time I think ever to be on Tour. Great play will get you to that next level and that’s a great spot to be.”

Dahmen was one of many to take advantage of his opportunities this fall. Playing in seven tournaments, the 35-year-old captured three top-10 finishes in addition to a couple top-20 results. For his efforts, Dahmen heads into 2023 ranked 15th in the FedEx Cup standings and in the driver’s seat to remain inside that coveted top-70 cutoff.

While Dahmen won’t be making the list of top winners from the fall, he is surely in the conversation and in a much better position than some of his peers who will be discussed in a different light. Not all were lucky enough to find their stride the past few months, and will have ample ground to make up come 2023.

Winners

Honorable Mention: Seamus Power, Alex Noren, Tommy Fleetwood, Rickie Fowler, Taylor Montgomery

Losers

Honorable Mention: Daniel Berger, Sam Burns, Cameron Champ, Taylor Pendrith

Source link

Well past the midway point of the 2022 season, Scottie Scheffler was on an absolute heater. While that victory pace may have cooled over the final couple months, Scheffler capped a dream season Saturday by capturing the 2022 PGA Tour Player of the Year award. Scheffler, 26, received the nod from his peers — the award is voted on by other PGA Tour players — over Rory McIlroy and Cameron Smith after picking up four wins at tournaments that ranked among the top 12 worldwide in strength of field.

Scheffler opened with wins at the Phoenix Open, Arnold Palmer Invitational and WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play before acquiring his first career major championship victory at the Masters. In winning four tournaments across six starts, Scheffler became the top-ranked golfer in the world and ended the season with more money earned on the PGA Tour across a single season than any golfer in history ($14.05 million). Among other earnings, he also picked up $5.75 million in FedEx Cup bonus funds and $4 million from the Comcast Business Tour Top 10 to capture a grand total of $24.8 million this season.

Receiving 89% of the votes over McIlroy and Smith, his award was announced Saturday on ESPN’s “College GameDay.” Scheffler, a former golfer at Texas, was honored ahead of the Longhorns’ Week 2 college football game against No. 1 Alabama.

McIlroy, a three-time winner of this award, was also a three-time winner on the PGA Tour this season with his victories coming at the CJ Cup last fall and then over the summer at the RBC Canadian Open in June and in dramatic fashion to conclude the season at the Tour Championship where he topped Scheffler to pocket $18 million. That final win at a huge-money event felt like a culmination of McIlroy’s incredible season, one in which he posted top-eight finishes at all four majors including the Masters (2nd), PGA Championship (8th), U.S. Open (T5) and Open Championship (3rd). He ended the year with $28 million more in his bank account between tournament earnings, FedEx Cup bonuses and the Comcast Business Top 10 payout.

“Scottie Scheffler is going to win the Player of the Year,” said McIlroy after beating him at the Tour Championship. “There’s no doubt about that. You know, it would have been fitting for him to end his breakout season with a FedEx Cup title. I think he … deserves this maybe more than I deserve it. He played an unbelievable season. He didn’t have his best stuff today, and I played well and took advantage of that.

“Scottie will have plenty more chances to win FedEx Cups. Hell of a player, hell of a competitor. Even better person. Love his family. Look, it’s hard. You don’t really know what to say on the 18th green because he’s had such a great year, but he’ll be back, and he’s a great player, and I told him this certainly isn’t the last time that we’re going to have these battles on the golf course.”

It was Smith who ultimately won that Open by overcoming a four-shot deficit after 54 holes by posting a scintillating 64 across the final 18 at St. Andrews, jumping McIlroy in the process. Smith also won the Players Championship and a Tournament of Champions event, posting a T3 finish at the Masters along the way. However, we won’t see him on the PGA Tour next season as he parlayed his Open victory into a big-money contract with LIV Golf.

Each of the prior three PGA Tour Player of the Year winners doubled as the FedEx Cup and Tour Championship winner, a streak that has now come to an end. Scheffler, however, reached a new milestone as the first golfer to win Player of the Year on the Korn Ferry Tour (2019), PGA Tour Rookie of the Year (2020) and PGA Tour Player of the Year since the awards were first established in 1990.

“On behalf of the PGA Tour, congratulations to Scottie on his remarkable season and his unprecedented achievements,” said PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan. “Undoubtably, one of the highest compliments a player can receive is the endorsement from his peers, and the fact that Scottie’s season was both dominant and consistent spoke volumes to the membership. And as gratifying as it has been to see his development on the course over the last several years, we are equally thankful that Scottie has embraced the role as an ambassador of the PGA Tour and the game of golf. With young stars like Scottie leading the way, the PGA Tour is in great hands for many years to come.”

Source link

Newly-crowned Masters champion Scottie Scheffler reveals how he tamed Augusta and what it means to become a Major winner

How does it feel to have won the Masters, your first major title, just two weeks after reaching no.1 in the world?

It feels pretty good and I’m just really thankful to be in this position. Obviously, I had dreamed of winning since I was a kid, every golfer has, and I imagined what it might feel like to walk up 18 with a big lead, but for that to play out the way that it did was beyond my expectations. I didn’t break my concentration until we got on to the green on 18. Once we got there, I was like, all right, I’m going to enjoy this, and had some fun with it. The four-putt was a little embarrassing though, but it kind of broke the tension.

Did you have a game plan for getting your way around the golf course this week?

We did. My caddie, Ted, and I knew exactly where I wanted to put the ball and if I was to miss it, which side of the golf course I could be on to where I could still get it up-and-down. We just did a good job of keeping myself in positions where we could still manage to reach the green when I wasn’t swinging my best. Ted knows this golf course so well, and I trusted him every step of the way. I had a lot of nice up-and-downs, so if I was to pick one part of my game that excelled the most, I would say it was probably my lob wedge.

Talking of wedge play, how pivotal was the chip-in was at the third hole?

I would say what is most important thing for me was getting that ball up-and-down, but to have it go in was obviously off the charts, but my main goal was just to get up-and-down, and see it go in was something special. Parring 4 and 5 was huge as well. After that I kind of just started cruising. I felt comfortable with most of the aspects of my game and I felt like I wasn’t ever going to make a bogey.

Did you keep your eye on the leaderboards all day?

For the most part I didn’t look at leaderboards. I did see at one point that Rory posted 7-under, and then Cam and I were kind of getting a little tight there after he birdied 11. I made a huge par putt there. After that he made the mistake on 12, and I had a nice up-and-down, and after that just played some good golf. I just kept my head down, kept pushing and trying to hit good shots and stay aggressive. The minute you take your foot off the gas, and play overly conservatively, bogeys can just start racking up. You have to play conservatively aggressive and hit good shots. You can’t just limp your way in. I knew that on the back nine and all I was trying to do was just hit good shots.

Eight weeks ago today, you had our first PGA Tour victory. You now have four wins in your last six starts. Could you ever imagine back then how this was all going to play out? And other than due to the fact you played great golf, did you ever see this coming? What do you put it down to?

I would say ‘no’ to both of those! I’ve never been a guy that likes to look too far into the future. So, for me, just staying present has always been what works best.

The Masters brings lots of life-changing things, but how excited are you about being able to come back here year after year?

That’s the coolest part about this whole deal. This is such a fun golf course. Augusta National is about as cool as it gets. I just can’t believe that I can come back and enjoy this golf course for the rest of my life.

A lot of top players, including the likes of Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Justin Thomas have talked about the influence of Tiger on their game. What has Tiger’s influence on you been?

Oh, yeah. I played Tiger’s irons, wore his shoes and wore his shirt this week. Tiger has done so much for the game of golf. and I, and all my fellow pros, are so glad to have him back out here. He is the needle for the game of golf. He has completely changed the PGA Tour since he came out on tour 25 year or so ago. And his YouTube clips are such an inspiration for me. I remember watching the highlights of him winning in ’97, kind of running away with it, and he never really broke his concentration. That’s something that I reminded myself of today. I tried not to look up. I tried to keep my head down and just keep doing what I was doing, because I didn’t want to break my concentration. The only time I did was on the 18th green and I had a five-shot lead and was like, all right, now I can enjoy this. And you saw the results of that. Thank you, Tiger.

Source link