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Opinion & Analysis

PGA Tour Players on the Rise and the Decline in 2017

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At the end of each season, I compile data on every PGA Tour player and then analyze which are on the rise and the decline for the upcoming season.

There are a number of variables that historically are quality indicators of a player’s future performance such as age, club speed, adjusted scoring average, etc. However, I tend to focus on what I call The Cornerstones of the Game.

These cornerstones include:

  • Driving Effectiveness
  • Red Zone Play (approach shots from 175-225 yards)
  • Short Game shots (from 10-20 yards)
  • Putting (5-15 feet)
  • Ball Speed

I used to call it The Four Cornerstones of the Game, as I did not factor in ball speed. What I found was that players who finished in the top-half in Driving Effectiveness, Red Zone Play, Short Game Shots from 10-20 yards and Putting from 5-15 feet had a high likelihood of being very successful on Tour and winning… or keep winning. However, I later discovered that players who were able to achieve all Four Cornerstones and be in the top-half in ball speed performed even better and had an increased likelihood of winning.

For instance, in the 2014-2015 season, the players who executed the Four Cornerstones (without ball speed) averaged nearly $1.9 million in earnings, while the players who executed the Four Cornerstones (including ball speed) averaged nearly $4 million in earnings. For short hitters who likely cannot substantially improve their ball speed, the Four Cornerstones still apply and are a good benchmark to improve their scoring average and thus make more money, which is the ultimate goal, right?

Sometimes, it doesn’t quite work out. For example, shorter-hitting Brian Stuard accomplished all Four Cornerstones in the 2013-2014 season and then lost his card in the 2014-2015 season. However, he then won in New Orleans this past season. But last year, the top player I had on my list to rise was Kevin Chappell. He accomplished all Five Cornerstones in the 2014-2015 season and went on to finish 8th in FedEx points.

Here are my players likely to Rise and Decline in 2017.

Players on the rise

OntheRisePGATOur

The following rankings are based out of 185 players for the 2015-2016 season.

Patrick Rodgers

PatrickRodgers

Rodgers makes the list of players on the rise for the second year in a row. At this point, he compares closely to a younger Keegan Bradley prior to the anchor putting ban. He’s a good driver of the ball who generates a lot of club speed. He also plays well from the Red Zone and is a competent short-game player and putter. Rodgers was hurt a bit by having to play a schedule that featured small-purse events, and he struggled to make putts outside 25 feet (150th).

However, putting outside 25 feet is a volatile metric in the sense that a player who performs poorly on long putts one season is more likely to perform well from outside 25 feet the next season. According to this trend, Rodgers is likely to be a better overall putter in the 2016-2017 season.

The two largest obstacles for him to overcome will be shots from 150-175 yards (179th) and putting from 10-15 feet (180th). However, given his Red Zone performance and putting from 5-10 feet and 15-25 feet, the historical data suggests that those metrics should improve this upcoming season.

Sean O’Hair

The Barclays - Round Three

SeanOhair

O’Hair has had a very up-and-down career, as witnessed by him being on my Players on the Decline last year and now being on my Players on the Rise list for this season. My projection of him being on the decline seemed to have merit, as he only had one top-10 finish and missed the cut in four out of the five events before the FedExCup Playoffs. He turned things around in the Playoffs, however, recording a second-place finish at The Barclays and making it into the Tour Championship.

O’Hair has changed swing coaches over the years, and has made various swing changes. He appeared to hit quite a bit downward on the driver and then switched to having one of the most upward attack angles on Tour. While many encourage hitting up on the driver for increased distance, the data shows that it’s very easy to over do it and for Tour players it can have a negative effect on their driving. O’Hair went through that and it now appears he’s reduced the upward attack angle a bit and is starting to find the driver swing that works for him.

Like Rodgers, O’Hair has some major issues from the Yellow Zone (125-175 yards), which will make birdies more difficult to come by, but he has been a very good Yellow Zone player in the past. And at the age of 34, he’s starting to hit those prime years of performance on Tour.

Shane Lowry

ShaneLowry2

The name of Lowry’s game up to this point in his career has been ballstriking. And while he had a fabulous season driving the ball, he has typically been an even better iron player. While he was still good from the Red Zone, his performance from the Yellow Zone and Green Zone (75-125 yards) was not typical for him. In the meantime, he developed an excellent short game and became a very good putter from 5-15 feet.

Lowry will have to improve on putts from 3-5 feet (177th) and regain his old from the Yellow Zone. I think from a status standpoint one could compare Lowry to Graeme McDowell before McDowell won the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. However, Lowry is much longer off the tee than McDowell was and had a fantastic year with his short game around the green, while McDowell is one of the worst on Tour around the green.

Marc Leishman

marc-leishman-160220.CACHE-924x924-20160220142318

MarcLeishman

Leishman accomplished all Five Cornerstones of the game and at 33 years old, he’s reaching the age of prime performance on Tour. In the past, Leishman’s weakness has been his driving, but he has been a strong Red Zone performer.

The data suggests that he may finally be conquering his driving woes, and while he had a solid season from the Red Zone (175-225) he has typically been much better from that distance range. If he can regain his old form from the Red Zone with the improvements in his driving, he might be a serious contender in the majors this season.

Adam Hadwin

AdamHadwin2

Hadwin executed all Five Cornerstones of the Game at 28 years old. He was hurt by the small-purse events he was allowed to play in. Another issue for him is his very conservative play off the tee, laying up quite often. I had him ranked 140th in Tee Shot Aggressiveness, which ranks players based on driving distance and courses played along with how often they decided to lay up off the tee versus hitting driver. Matt Kuchar ranked No. 1 in Tee Shot Aggressiveness, while Hadwin was very conservative.

Hadwin did have a good year of driving the ball, but had he decided to lay up less often, that would have likely made him more effective off the tee in the long run. And given that he has ample distance off the tee and putts well, he was missing out on some opportunities to win tournaments.

Players on the decline

OntheDeclinePGATour

James Hahn

JamesHahn

Hahn finished 40th on the Money List despite ranking 127th in Adjusted Scoring Average thanks to his win at the Wells Fargo Championship. He was right at the average in Driving Effectiveness, but was a mediocre Red Zone player who putted poorly and was the second-worst player on Tour from 10-20 yards.

The positive news is that he hasn’t lost any ball speed, which is where players who drastically decline also tend to drastically decline in their overall performance. He has typically been a better iron player than he was this past season, however, and his numbers suggest that he won’t make many birdies and struggle to consistently save pars going forward.

Jason Day

TOUR Championship - Round Two

JasonDay

Day is a difficult subject to tackle because he was second in both Adjusted Scoring Average and the Money List. However, his ball-striking metrics were not as good as one would assume. His weakness has always been his performance from 150-200 yards and this year it carried over to 200-225 yards as well.

Obviously, much of this could be blamed on his injuries. However, that’s part of the point, as the numbers indicate that the injuries are taking a toll on his game. The issue here is that if he comes back healthy and can stay healthy for a period of time, he can churn out performances like he had at the end of 2015 and at The Players Championship this year.

The other issue is that he had the best year putting on Tour since the Putts-Gained metric was created. Odds are that he’s not going to putt nearly as well as he did. He may be one of the top putters on Tour this season, but he’s likely to be statistically worse than how he putted in the 2015-2016 season.

Smylie Kaufman

SmylieKaufman

Kaufman benefited from a schedule that featured big-purse events, as he finished 35th on the Money List despite ranking 96th in Adjusted Scoring Average. The good news for Kaufman is that he’s young, he’s long off the tee, he was a good Red Zone player and he’s an above average putter.

He will need to greatly improve his driving and his Yellow Zone play in 2017, however. At this pace, it will take away a lot of good birdie opportunities. And if his short game play from 10-20 yards does not improve, he will struggle to avoid bogeys as well. This season he will not receive the same opportunities in terms of a big-purse schedule.

Bubba Watson

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BubbaWatson

Bubba’s driving performance and putting became a real struggle for him this season. He also turns 38 years old, which may begin to work against him.

The numbers indicate that Bubba still has plenty of game left in him, as he hasn’t lost significant ball speed and is a good iron player, but he may no longer be quite the performer he was from 2010-2014. Bubba has said he was struggling with some of the mental parts of the game. That may have been a major factor in his putting woes and carried over to his driving, as he typically is the very best driver on Tour. While he still finished 10th in Driving Effectiveness this season, he is typically significantly better off the tee than he was this past season.

Fabian Gomez

FabianGomez

Gomez also benefitted from a large-purse schedule that comes with winning twice in a 12-month span. After his victory at the Sony Open, he went on to miss 10 out of 21 cuts to the finish the season. He did have a strong FedExCup Playoffs, but failed to make the Tour Championship. He should have a strong big-purse schedule, but not as much as he had in the 2015-2016 season.

His driving was better than average, but he doesn’t hit it very far. His best attribute was his putting. Meanwhile, he was a mediocre iron player and short-game performer, which typically leads to not making enough birdies and not avoiding enough bogeys.

Richie Hunt is a statistician whose clients include PGA Tour players, their caddies and instructors in order to more accurately assess their games. He is also the author of the recently published e-book, 2018 Pro Golf Synopsis; the Moneyball Approach to the Game of Golf. He can be reached at ProGolfSynopsis@yahoo.com or on Twitter @Richie3Jack. GolfWRX Writer of the Month: March 2014 Purchase 2017 Pro Golf Synopsis E-book for $10

1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. birdy

    Oct 26, 2016 at 1:37 pm

    Lot of shanks…..wish those would comment as to why unless you just have a different guess on who is going to have an up or down year……and then the usual pathetic response by smizzle.

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Opinion & Analysis

The 2 primary challenges golf equipment companies face

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As the editor-in-chief of this website and an observer of the GolfWRX forums and other online golf equipment discourse for over a decade, I’m pretty well attuned to the grunts and grumbles of a significant portion of the golf equipment purchasing spectrum. And before you accuse me of lording above all in some digital ivory tower, I’d like to offer that I worked at golf courses (public and private) for years prior to picking up my pen, so I’m well-versed in the non-degenerate golf equipment consumers out there. I touched (green)grass (retail)!

Complaints about the ills of and related to the OEMs usually follow some version of: Product cycles are too short for real innovation, tour equipment isn’t the same as retail (which is largely not true, by the way), too much is invested in marketing and not enough in R&D, top staffer X hasn’t even put the new driver in play, so it’s obviously not superior to the previous generation, prices are too high, and on and on.

Without digging into the merits of any of these claims, which I believe are mostly red herrings, I’d like to bring into view of our rangefinder what I believe to be the two primary difficulties golf equipment companies face.

One: As Terry Koehler, back when he was the CEO of Ben Hogan, told me at the time of the Ft Worth irons launch, if you can’t regularly hit the golf ball in a coin-sized area in the middle of the face, there’s not a ton that iron technology can do for you. Now, this is less true now with respect to irons than when he said it, and is less and less true by degrees as the clubs get larger (utilities, fairways, hybrids, drivers), but there remains a great deal of golf equipment truth in that statement. Think about it — which is to say, in TL;DR fashion, get lessons from a qualified instructor who will teach you about the fundamentals of repeatable impact and how the golf swing works, not just offer band-aid fixes. If you can’t repeatably deliver the golf club to the golf ball in something resembling the manner it was designed for, how can you expect to be getting the most out of the club — put another way, the maximum value from your investment?

Similarly, game improvement equipment can only improve your game if you game it. In other words, get fit for the clubs you ought to be playing rather than filling the bag with the ones you wish you could hit or used to be able to hit. Of course, don’t do this if you don’t care about performance and just want to hit a forged blade while playing off an 18 handicap. That’s absolutely fine. There were plenty of members in clubs back in the day playing Hogan Apex or Mizuno MP-32 irons who had no business doing so from a ballstriking standpoint, but they enjoyed their look, feel, and complementary qualities to their Gatsby hats and cashmere sweaters. Do what brings you a measure of joy in this maddening game.

Now, the second issue. This is not a plea for non-conforming equipment; rather, it is a statement of fact. USGA/R&A limits on every facet of golf equipment are detrimental to golf equipment manufacturers. Sure, you know this, but do you think about it as it applies to almost every element of equipment? A 500cc driver would be inherently more forgiving than a 460cc, as one with a COR measurement in excess of 0.83. 50-inch shafts. Box grooves. And on and on.

Would fewer regulations be objectively bad for the game? Would this erode its soul? Fortunately, that’s beside the point of this exercise, which is merely to point out the facts. The fact, in this case, is that equipment restrictions and regulations are the slaughterbench of an abundance of innovation in the golf equipment space. Is this for the best? Well, now I’ve asked the question twice and might as well give a partial response, I guess my answer to that would be, “It depends on what type of golf you’re playing and who you’re playing it with.”

For my part, I don’t mind embarrassing myself with vintage blades and persimmons chasing after the quasi-spiritual elevation of a well-struck shot, but that’s just me. Plenty of folks don’t give a damn if their grooves are conforming. Plenty of folks think the folks in Liberty Corner ought to add a prison to the museum for such offences. And those are just a few of the considerations for the amateur game — which doesn’t get inside the gallery ropes of the pro game…

Different strokes in the game of golf, in my humble opinion.

Anyway, I believe equipment company engineers are genuinely trying to build better equipment year over year. The marketing departments are trying to find ways to make this equipment appeal to the broadest segment of the golf market possible. All of this against (1) the backdrop of — at least for now — firm product cycles. And golfers who, with their ~15 average handicap (men), for the most part, are not striping the golf ball like Tiger in his prime and seem to have less and less time year over year to practice and improve. (2) Regulations that massively restrict what they’re able to do…

That’s the landscape as I see it and the real headwinds for golf equipment companies. No doubt, there’s more I haven’t considered, but I think the previous is a better — and better faith — point of departure when formulating any serious commentary on the golf equipment world than some of the more cynical and conspiratorial takes I hear.

Agree? Disagree? Think I’m worthy of an Adam Hadwin-esque security guard tackle? Let me know in the comments.

@golfoncbs The infamous Adam Hadwin tackle ? #golf #fyp #canada #pgatour #adamhadwin ? Ghibli-style nostalgic waltz – MaSssuguMusic

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Podcasts

Fore Love of Golf: Introducing a new club concept

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Episode #16 brings us Cliff McKinney. Cliff is the founder of Old Charlie Golf Club, a new club, and concept, to be built in the Florida panhandle. The model is quite interesting and aims to make great, private golf more affordable. We hope you enjoy the show!

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Opinion & Analysis

On Scottie Scheffler wondering ‘What’s the point of winning?’

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Last week, I came across a reel from BBC Sport on Instagram featuring Scottie Scheffler speaking to the media ahead of The Open at Royal Portrush. In it, he shared that he often wonders what the point is of wanting to win tournaments so badly — especially when he knows, deep down, that it doesn’t lead to a truly fulfilling life.

 

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“Is it great to be able to win tournaments and to accomplish the things I have in the game of golf? Yeah, it brings tears to my eyes just to think about it because I’ve literally worked my entire life to be good at this sport,” Scheffler said. “To have that kind of sense of accomplishment, I think, is a pretty cool feeling. To get to live out your dreams is very special, but at the end of the day, I’m not out here to inspire the next generation of golfers. I’m not out here to inspire someone to be the best player in the world, because what’s the point?”

Ironically — or perhaps perfectly — he went on to win the claret jug.

That question — what’s the point of winning? — cuts straight to the heart of the human journey.

As someone who’s spent over two decades in the trenches of professional golf, and in deep study of the mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of the game, I see Scottie’s inner conflict as a sign of soul evolution in motion.

I came to golf late. I wasn’t a junior standout or college All-American. At 27, I left a steady corporate job to see if I could be on the PGA Tour starting as a 14-handicap, average-length hitter. Over the years, my journey has been defined less by trophies and more by the relentless effort to navigate the deeply inequitable and gated system of professional golf — an effort that ultimately turned inward and helped me evolve as both a golfer and a person.

One perspective that helped me make sense of this inner dissonance around competition and our culture’s tendency to overvalue winning is the idea of soul evolution.

The University of Virginia’s Division of Perceptual Studies has done extensive research on reincarnation, and Netflix’s Surviving Death (Episode 6) explores the topic, too. Whether you take it literally or metaphorically, the idea that we’re on a long arc of growth — from beginner to sage elder — offers a profound perspective.

If you accept the premise literally, then terms like “young soul” and “old soul” start to hold meaning. However, even if we set the word “soul” aside, it’s easy to see that different levels of life experience produce different worldviews.

Newer souls — or people in earlier stages of their development — may be curious and kind but still lack discernment or depth. There is a naivety, and they don’t yet question as deeply, tending to see things in black and white, partly because certainty feels safer than confronting the unknown.

As we gain more experience, we begin to experiment. We test limits. We chase extreme external goals — sometimes at the expense of health, relationships, or inner peace — still operating from hunger, ambition, and the fragility of the ego.

It’s a necessary stage, but often a turbulent and unfulfilling one.

David Duval fell off the map after reaching World No. 1. Bubba Watson had his own “Is this it?” moment with his caddie, Ted Scott, after winning the Masters.

In Aaron Rodgers: Enigma, reflecting on his 2011 Super Bowl win, Rodgers said:

“Now I’ve accomplished the only thing that I really, really wanted to do in my life. Now what? I was like, ‘Did I aim at the wrong thing? Did I spend too much time thinking about stuff that ultimately doesn’t give you true happiness?’”

Jim Carrey once said, “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”

Eventually, though, something shifts.

We begin to see in shades of gray. Winning, dominating, accumulating—these pursuits lose their shine. The rewards feel more fleeting. Living in a constant state of fight-or-flight makes us feel alive, yes, but not happy and joyful.

Compassion begins to replace ambition. Love, presence, and gratitude become more fulfilling than status, profits, or trophies. We crave balance over burnout. Collaboration over competition. Meaning over metrics.

Interestingly, if we zoom out, we can apply this same model to nations and cultures. Countries, like people, have a collective “soul stage” made up of the individuals within them.

Take the United States, for example. I’d place it as a mid-level soul: highly competitive and deeply driven, but still learning emotional maturity. Still uncomfortable with nuance. Still believing that more is always better. Despite its global wins, the U.S. currently ranks just 23rd in happiness (as of 2025). You might liken it to a gifted teenager—bold, eager, and ambitious, but angsty and still figuring out how to live well and in balance. As much as a parent wants to protect their child, sometimes the child has to make their own mistakes to truly grow.

So when Scottie Scheffler wonders what the point of winning is, I don’t see someone losing strength.

I see someone evolving.

He’s beginning to look beyond the leaderboard. Beyond metrics of success that carry a lower vibration. And yet, in a poetic twist, Scheffler did go on to win The Open. But that only reinforces the point: even at the pinnacle, the question remains. And if more of us in the golf and sports world — and in U.S. culture at large — started asking similar questions, we might discover that the more meaningful trophy isn’t about accumulating or beating others at all costs.

It’s about awakening and evolving to something more than winning could ever promise.

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