Scheffler, Clark, Hun An top hot list
Scottie Scheffler is the hottest golfer on the planet — but he’s not alone entering this week’s 50th Players Championship.
Scheffler’s victory on Sunday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational kept him solidly atop the World Golf Rankings and moved him past Matthieu Pavon into first place on the FedEx Cup points list. Since Scheffler qualified for the PGA Tour in 2019-20, no one has won more tournaments or finished among the top three, top five or top 10 than the former University of Texas star from New Jersey.
Scheffler has built plenty of momentum for The Players, which begins Thursday at the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. But the field of 144 is the deepest in professional golf and he’s not the only player riding a wave to Ponte Vedra Beach.
Here are other candidates on the current PGA Tour hot list ... and those who could stand to warm up a bit:
Who’s hot:
Scottie Scheffler is scorching
Scottie Scheffler: Let’s just take this season — Scheffler has finished among the top-10 in five of six starts and the top five in three. In the last two seasons, he’s finished among the top-10 in 22 of 29 starts (75.8 percent) and the top five in 17 of 29 (58.6). It was only one tournament, but he led the field in Strokes Gained Putting last week, and the conventional wisdom in the past few years is that if Scheffler ever started putting in more than his share of 6-footers, he’d go on a Tiger Woods-like roll.
Wyndham Clark:
His second-place finish at Bay Hills was a sharp bounceback from a missed cut at the Genesis In
vitational. Since winning the Wells Fargo Championship in May, Clark has five top 10s and all three of his Tour victories. It remains to be seen if his high banana cut will hit enough fairways at The Players but it did post two 69s and tie for 27th last year.
His tie for eighth at Bay Hill was An’s third top-10 this season and he’s quietly made 13 cuts in a row with five top 10s in all. He started the season strong with a four at the Sentry Championship and a playoff loss to Grayson Murray at the Sony Open.
Byeong Hun An:
Will Zalatoris:
He’s making a strong early case for PGA Tour Comeback Player of the Year. Since returning from back surgery that cost him last year, he’s made four of five cuts and in his last three starts, has tied for fourth, second and 13th.
Hideki Matsuyama:
He’s posted scores of par or lower in 13 of his last 14 competitive rounds and took it deep with a 62 in the final round to win the Genesis Invitational. He finished solo fifth in The Players last year, then didn’t have another top 10 until he won at Riviera.
Who’s not: Rory McIlroy struggling in America
Rory McIlroy: The 2019 Players
champion won earlier this year in the DP World Tour’s stop in Dubai but he’s failed to crack the top 20 in four U.S. starts. He’s trying to regain the form he had at the end of the 2022-23 season when he closed with 10 top-10 finishes in a row, including his victory in the Scottish Open. He’s driving the ball well and is first on the Tour in Strokes Gained off the tee. But oddly enough, McIlroy is having trouble finding the greens, and is 133rd in Strokes Gained approach to the green.
Since winning the 2023 FedEx Cup Championship (also winning the BMW Championship the week before), Hovland has a peak finish of a tie for 19th at the Genesis Invitational. He was in the mix entering the
Viktor Hovland:
weekend at Bay Hil and shot 7575.
Collin Morikawa:
Only 11 players missed the cut at the Palmer Invitational. This twotime major champion was one of them after a second-round 80. Morikawa can’t quite seem to decide which direction to move. He’s missed two cuts, but has a tie for fifth, a tie for 14th and a tie for 19th in his other three starts this season and won his last start of the 2022-23 season at the ZOZO Championship.
Rickie
Fowler:
Everyone thought the 2015 Players champion was back when he won the Rocket Mortage Classic last year to cap a stretch of four top 10s in a five-tournament span, which also included a tie for fifth in the
U.S. Open. But since then he’s missed two cuts and his average finish is 29th, with nothing better than a tie for 16th in the 2023 Tour Championship — slightly below middle of the pack in that event. Everything is a bit of a mess right now: he’s 127th in driving accuracy, 127th in greens in regulation and 121st in total putting.
Nick Dunlap:
Well, no one said it was going to be that easy every week. Since winning The American Express as an amateur and then leaving Alabama to join the Tour four days later, Dunlap has finished 80, missed a cut, tied for 53rd and tied for 48th. Since his third-round 60 at La Quinta, he’s had only one round in the 60s in his last 14.