The Top 50 PGA Championship Contenders, Ranked

Major season rolls on. As the world’s best descend on Quail Hollow this week for the PGA Championship, there are a number of players peaking at the right time.

To help you place your bets (or simply be a more informed viewer), we’ve ranked the top 50 teeing it up this week with one (unsurprising) pick to win at the end. We’d write more, but you have quite a bit of reading to do already here.

Enjoy.

50. Michael Kim

Age: 31

Data Golf Ranking: 29

PGA Championship starts: 2

Best PGA Championship finish: CUT in both appearances

He'a having a career renaissance under the guidance of Sean Foley, and finished T13 or better in six straight starts from the WM Phoenix Open through the Arnold Palmer Invitational—a stretch that pushed him high enough in the world rankings to get back to Augusta (where he finished T27). He's been a bit more meh since, but if his bad weeks are making cuts now, that’s a much higher bar than it was a few years ago.

49. Nico Echavarria

Age: 30 Data Golf Ranking: 122 PGA Championship starts: 1

Best PGA Championship finish: CUT in only appearance

He's enjoying the best season of his career, but you wonder how much better it might be if he could play the same way on Sundays that he does the other three. Over his last seven final rounds he’s not broken 70 once, with an average score of 74.6, including an 84 at Augusta National. He's fourth on tour in strokes gained putting and that’s where he’s gained most of his keep this year. He'll need to turn up the ball striking to compete on a setup this demanding.

48. Dean Burmester

Age: 35 Data Golf Ranking: 61 PGA Championship starts: 4

Best PGA Championship finish: T12, 2024

Burmester is spending the prime of his career on LIV Golf and doing quite well—he finished ninth in the points list in 2024, sits eighth at present, and has made more than $22 million on-course alone. He has three top-20 finishes to his name in major championships including a T12 at Valhalla in last year’s PGA.

47. Sam Stevens

Age: 28 Data Golf Ranking: 64 PGA Championship starts: 1

Best PGA Championship finish: T72, 2023

The Oklahoma State grad has a solo second and a solo third on his resume this year, but no Wikipedia page yet. He managed a solid 10 top 25s in his rookie season in 2024 to safely keep his card and has kicked it into another gear in his sophomore season. Stevens made the cut in all three of his major appearances so far.

46. Wyndham Clark

Age: 31 Data Golf Ranking: 50 PGA Championship starts: 4

Best PGA Championship finish: T75, 2021

The good: he’s a U.S. Open winner about to play a major at a course he’s won on. The bad: his major record outside of that U.S. Open win is not good at all, and his only top-10 finish came against a weaker field at the Texas Children’s Houston Open. Perhaps a return to Quail Hollow, the site of the victory that changed the course of his career, will jolt him back to form.

45. Eugenio Chacarra

Age: 25 Data Golf Ranking: 112 PGA Championship starts: 8

Best PGA Championship finish: T12, 2018

He was the No. 2 amateur in the world (and playing at Oklahoma State) when he eschewed the PGA TOUR pipeline for LIV Golf. His deal ran up, he’s back playing the DP World Tour, and he took some shots on the way out: “I see what it’s like to win on the PGA TOUR and how your life changes,” Chacarra said. “How you get major access and ranking points. On LIV, nothing changes, there is only money. It doesn’t matter if you finish 30th or first, only money. I’m not a guy who wants more money. What will change my life is playing in Hawaii and qualifying for the majors, qualifying for the Masters, the Ryder Cup.” He has done quite well this year, ranking 14th in the points in Europe and gets his first crack at a PGA Championship.

44. Max Homa

Age: 34 Data Golf Ranking: 179 PGA Championship starts: 10

Best PGA Championship finish: T10, 2018

Max maintains he’s hitting it better than ever in practice but the issue has been translating it to where it matters: between-the-ropes. He finally showed some signs of progress at the Masters, where he gutted out a T12 finish to guarantee a return to Augusta next year, but some of the shine wore off when he only beat two players at the RBC Heritage. He bounced back with two solid opening rounds at the Truist and finished T30, 11 strokes behind winner Sepp Straka. Homa joked that he used to be known as the guy who couldn’t play well in majors, and now he might be the guy who only plays well in majors. He's a two-time winner of the Wells Fargo Championship but only one of those came at Quail Hollow (the other was at TPC Potomac in 2022, the year Quail hosted the Presidents Cup).

43. J.J. Spaun

Age: 34 Data Golf Ranking: 30 PGA Championship starts: 4

Best PGA Championship finish: T35, 2018

Two runner-up finishes in Florida at the Cognizant and the Players have Spaun flying high in the world rankings and FedEx Cup. He ranks 16th in strokes gained overall and a highly impressive sixth in strokes gained approach. A top-five finish in this tournament would catapult him into serious Ryder Cup contention, which would be a remarkable step in the continued progression of his career. His previous best finish in a major is T23.

42. Tony Finau

Age: 35 Data Golf Ranking: 48 PGA Championship starts: 10

Best PGA Championship finish:T4, 2020

It hasn’t been a good season. His lone top-10 in 11 starts came back at the Genesis Invitational in February. He split with longtime swing coach Boyd Summerhays early this year and has been working with Chris Como of late. It’s easy to point to that as the reason for the slide, but it’s mostly been short-game struggles. A missed cut at the Masters for the first time in his career must’ve felt a low point and he’s now missed the weekend at each of the past two major championships. There is no doubt there is world-class ability there—he was T3 at the U.S. Open last year—but it’s being obscured by loose scoring.

41. Sergio Garcia

Age: 45 Data Golf Ranking: 53 PGA Championship starts: 24

Best PGA Championship finish: 2, 1999

Garcia had some serious momentum entering the Masters—he’d racked up three top-four finishes in his last four starts on LIV, including a victory, and looked poised to keep pushing for one last Ryder Cup spot at Bethpage. Then he missed the cut at Augusta and laid eggs in each of the next two LIV events, and now it’s a very different narrative. His recent major record is nothing to be proud of, with five missed cuts in his last eight starts, and his recent PGA Championship record is downright awful. He hasn’t played one since 2022 and missed the cut in seven straight PGAs before that. Incredibly, he’s only made the cut in 10 of 24 career PGA Championship starts. Still, he was playing excellent golf not very long ago and the motivation remains high with the Ryder Cup inching closer.

40. David Puig

Age: 23 Data Golf Ranking: 43 PGA Championship starts: 1

Best PGA Championship finish: CUT in only appearance

One of the handful of LIV players to receive a last-minute invite. He’s seventh in LIV points this year and, similar to Chacarra, opted for LIV straight out of Arizona State as one of the top-ranked amateurs in the world. He posted two top-four finishes early in the year on the DP World Tour to push up the rankings and has managed to get into four of the last major championships. Two missed cuts and a T55 is all he has to show for it as of now.

39. Cameron Smith

Age: 31 Data Golf Ranking: 41 PGA Championship starts: 5

Best PGA Championship finish: T9, 2023

Smith has top 10s in three of his last four LIV starts after a slow start to the season. He has not fared particularly well on big juicy setups like the ones the PGA of America tend to opt for. He’s a shotmaker and has had the majority of his major success at the Open Championship and the Masters, where wayward tee shots don’t kill you and guile is rewarded. He also missed the cut at the 2017 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow.

38. Robert MacIntyre

Age: 28 Data Golf Ranking: 33 PGA Championship starts: 4

Best PGA Championship finish: T8, 2024

Bobby Mac broke through with two wins on tour last year, each hugely emotional—one with his dad on the bag at the Canadian Open and one on home turf. Scotland’s own tried the Orlando life briefly but opted to move back to Oban. He didn’t have any trouble in his return to Florida this year, however, with a T11 at Bay Hill and a solo ninth at the Players Championship. Though he missed the cut at the Masters and hasn’t done much of note since.

37. Keith Mitchell

Age: 33 Data Golf Ranking: 46 PGA Championship starts: 5

Best PGA Championship finish: T34, 2022

He’s been the best player in the world on Thursdays this year. Consider this: his scoring average in first rounds this year is 67.10, more than a full shot ahead of Tiger Woods’ record 68.17 scoring average in 2000. The scoring average does creep up higher every round, however, which is how he had just one top 10 on the year heading into Truist (where he grabbed another with a T7). One of the best drivers of the ball on tour—that’s always a massive key in PGA Championships and especially so this week with thick rough expected.

36. Harris English

Age: 35 Data Golf Ranking: 54 PGA Championship starts: 8

Best PGA Championship finish: T18, 2024

He's been really consistent if unspectacular in his major championship career—he’s made the cut in 26 of 32 career starts and each of the last five, highlighted by a T12 at this year’s Masters to ensure a return visit. English won for the first time in 3.5 years on a major-liek setup at Torrey Pines. All three of his major top-10 finishes have come at U.S. Opens over a four-year stretch.

35. Ben Griffin

Age: 28 Data Golf Ranking: 47 PGA Championship starts: 2

Best PGA Championship finish: CUT, 2023

Griffin just barely missed the Masters when Michael Kim knocked him out of the top 50 in the world at the last possible moment. He’s playing the best golf of his career and picked up his first win alongside Andrew Novak at the Zurich Classic. The next step in his progression is to see the weekend in a major championship—he’s played four with no success thus far. But the confidence has never been higher.

34. Min Woo Lee

Age: 26 Data Golf Ranking: 36 PGA Championship starts: 3

Best PGA Championship finish: T18, 2023

He drove down Magnolia Lane overflowing with confidence off his first career PGA Tour victory where he outlasted Scottie Scheffler and Gary Woodland…only to put up a clunker at the Masters. It was another poor start at RBC Heritage on a course that couldn’t be worse for him—he hits it long and sometimes wild, and that doesn’t work at Hilton Head. He made the cut in 10 of his 14 career major appearances and has gone T18 and T26 in his prior two PGA Championship starts.

33. Si Woo Kim

Age: 29 Data Golf Ranking: 32 PGA Championship starts: 9

Best PGA Championship finish: T13, 2020

Si Woo is an absolute delight to spend time around, Scottie Scheffler called him maybe the funniest guy on the PGA Tour and I can co-sign. He's already played 285 PGA Tour events before his 30th birthday and is a four-time winner, but he's yet to post a single top 10 in 31 career tries. And his record at the PGA Championship is the worst of the bunch: he’s made the cut in just 2 of 9 tries. He did finish T16 at Quail Hollow last year, but I can’t make excuses for that major record.

32. Keegan Bradley

Age: 38 Data Golf Ranking: 21 PGA Championship starts: 14

Best PGA Championship finish: WIN, 2011

For as good a career as he’s had, the major record is a touch barren—outside, of course, a victory in his first-ever major start at this tournament 14 years ago. He returns at the Ryder Cup captain and still very much a world-class player, but with only three additional major top 10s in the 13 years since and none since the 2022 U.S. Open at Brookline. He’s said he’ll really start to lock in on who will be on his team around this year’s U.S. Open, so he’s got another solid month of focusing on his play before the Bethpage-related activities dominate too much of his energy.

31. Andrew Novak

Age: 30 Data Golf Ranking: 31 PGA Championship starts: Rookie

He's a nice reminder that for every Ludvig Aberg, a college superstar who finds success immediately in pro golf, there’s an Andrew Novak, who oscillated between tours, and didn’t go to a powerhouse school, but eventually blossoms into a really solid player. He entered the Truist (where he finished T17) with top threes in three consecutive starts including his first PGA Tour win alongside fellow grinder Ben Griffin at the Zurich Classic. Novak stands almost comically close to the golf ball. This is just his second-ever major championship appearance.

30. Justin Rose

Age: 44 Data Golf Ranking: 57 PGA Championship starts: 22

Best PGA Championship finish: T3, 2012

He's rather boom-or-bust, which explains the big delta between his world ranking (No. 14) and Data Golf ranking (No. 57). He’s been runner up in the past two major championships and top 10 in four of the last eight. The other four? Missed cuts. Rosey showed some serious firepower with those 10 final-round birdies at Augusta, but since then he’s gone T42 out of 70 at the RBC Heritage and withdrew after being dead last through two rounds at the Truist, citing an illness. Who knows?

29. Akshay Bhatia

Age: 23 Data Golf Ranking: 35 PGA Championship starts: 1

Best PGA Championship finish: CUT in only appearance

Akshay posted three top 10s in four starts from Genesis through the Players but it’s been a bit of a slog recently—he missed the cut at Valero, went T42 at the Masters and RBC Heritage and missed the cut alongside Carson Young at the Zurich Classic before finishing T46 at Truist. His short game continues to be the area with most room for improvement. Bhatia grew up in North Carolina before moving recently to the Jupiter area so this will be familiar terrain for his second PGA Championship start.

28. Aaron Rai

Age: 30 Data Golf Ranking: 28 PGA Championship starts: 2

Best PGA Championship finish: T39, 2024

Rai's having another solid year after he broke through in 2024 with his first PGA TOUR win and by reaching the TOUR Championship. He's firmly in contention to make the Ryder Cup team and he’s a success story of guys who got their TOUR card through the DP World Tour. He ranks 177th in driving distance but an impressive 24th in strokes gained off the tee—that’s because he is statistically the straightest player on the PGA Tour, hitting 72% of his fairways.

27. Brooks Koepka

Age: 35 Data Golf Ranking: 60 PGA Championship starts: 12

Best PGA Championship finish: WIN, 2018, 2019, 2023

There’s nothing in his recent record to suggest his game is major-ready. Hasn’t finished better than T17 in his last four LIV starts and has gone six straight major championships without a top 25, an unfathomable stretch considering he had a stretch of 22 top-25s in 27 major starts earlier in his career. All that said…he’s Brooks Koepka, and this is a PGA Chamiponship. He’s a three-time winner of this event and has never missed a cut in 12 tries. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he contended this week. He’s an all-time great, and you never count out an all-time great at 35 years of age.

26. Sam Burns

Age: 28 Data Golf Ranking: 27 PGA Championship starts: 4

Best PGA Championship finish: T20, 2022

It's been a pretty quiet season for Burns in a Ryder Cup year, and he has some work to do to make his fourth straight Team USA. He posted his best finish of the season with a T5 at the Byron Nelson. Just one top-10 finish in his major career in 19 tries and he’s missed the cut in each of the past two PGA Championships. The finest putter on tour this year statistically (he leads in strokes gained) but putting a lot of pressure on that part of his game with rather poor ball striking stats (147th in strokes gained tee-to-green).

25. Jason Day

Age: 37 Data Golf Ranking: 24 PGA Championship starts: 15

Best PGA Championship finish: T12, 2023

He’s got two top 10s in his last four starts, including at the Masters, he finished fourth at Quail Hollow last year, and he won there in 2018. All that said, there’s an injury concern here—he withdrew from the Truist Championship with a nagging neck issue. He’s played well while dealing with injuries throughout his career. It feels like he’s on the back half of his career, but he's still just 37 (only 18 months older than Rory McIlroy). The golf content he’s putting out on The Lads YouTube channel is top-tier.

24. Denny McCarthy

Age: 32 Data Golf Ranking: 20 PGA Championship starts: 5

Best PGA Championship finish: T29, 2023

He opened with 62 at last week’s Truist, a reminder of what he’s capable of when that golden flatstick gets hot. But he followed with a 73-74-59 to finish T46. The world’s best putter should absolutely be on the U.S. team in Bethpage in this writer’s personal opinion, and while he did okay at the Masters (T29), a top 10 in a major would go a long way toward showing Keegan Bradley that he’s good enough. He's been really good at Quail Hollow, too—taking T6 last year and T8 in 2023.

23. Viktor Hovland

Age: 27 Data Golf Ranking: 19 PGA Championship starts: 5

Best PGA Championship finish: T2, 2023

It's genuinely hard to keep up with the state of his game because it seems ever-changing these days. His win at the Valspar Championship game after three consecutive missed cuts and he described his swing as “non-functional” earlier this year. Followed up that victory with solid weeks at the Masters (T21) and RBC Heritage (T13) only to finish toward the back of the pack in Philly. Has a great record at PGA Championships—he was very much in the mix last year and finished solo third and emerged as Brooks Koepka’s best competition en route to a T2 in 2023.

22. Maverick McNealy

Age: 29 Data Golf Ranking: 23 PGA Championship starts: 4

Best PGA Championship finish: T23, 2024

He’s in the top 10 of the world rankings and while it’s easy to chalk that up as a casualty of the LIV era, he does keep posting really solid finishes against strong fields. He nearly won the Genesis Invitational at Torrey Pines, made the cut in his first masters, took T3 at Valero and most recently T3 in another signature event at the RBC Heritage, before a T60 at Truist. It is amazing what some confidence can do—he won in bunches at Stanford but never really established himself as a force on the PGA TOUR until this year. The next step: do it in major championships. He’s not going to get a Ryder Cup pick unless he does.

21. Jordan Spieth

Age: 31 Data Golf Ranking: 26 PGA Championship starts: 12

Best PGA Championship finish: 2, 2015

Spieth said at the beginning of the year that his wrist had been an issue for far too long and was excited to have a clean slate with full health. There have been plenty of positive signs this year—three top 10s, including a solo fourth at the CJ Cup, and four straight finishes of T18 or better heading into Truist (where he wound up T34). Interestingly enough his driver has been the best club in his bag recently, both before the surgery and since. That was never the case when he was at his world-beating best. It’d be incredible for golf if the first two majors of the year each produced a Career Grand Slam winner. It’d also be hugely surprising. Solid finishes in non majors is one thing; winning one is quite another.

20. Tyrrell Hatton

Age: 33 Data Golf Ranking: 11 PGA Championship starts: 10

Best PGA Championship finish: T10, 2018

Hatton played great last year and kept it rolling in the early part of 2025. As such, he’s a virtual lock to be on Luke Donald’s team at Bethpage Black. He turned a corner with his Masters form in the last two years with two top-15 finishes after famously complaining about what he sees as some unfairness at Augusta. His best-ever finish in 39 career major starts is a T6 at the 2019 Open, which is a bit disappointing considering how good he’s been on tours across the world. These weeks require patience, and that’s not his forte.

19. Corey Conners

Age: 33 Data Golf Ranking: 14 PGA Championship starts: 6

Best PGA Championship finish: T12, 2023

Connors put himself in excellent position at the Masters and played with eventual champion Rory McIlroy on Saturday, but the Canadian faded a bit down the stretch and finished eighth, and most recently finished T11 at Truist.

18. Patrick Cantlay

Age: 33 Data Golf Ranking: 12 PGA Championship starts: 8

Best PGA Championship finish: T3, 2019

He's had another solid and consistent season but has not won on the PGA Tour since August 2022. He hardly ever misses a cut and the ball striking numbers have been very good of late—a hot putting week could absolutely propel him into major championship contention. He’s often a sleeper pick coming into these weeks but as those who’ve bet on him in majors can attest, it’s often a frustrating experience. He did, however, finish T4 at the Truist, four shots back of winner Sepp Straka.

17. Joaquin Niemann

Age: 26 Data Golf Ranking: 9 PGA Championship starts: 7

Best PGA Championship finish: T23, 2022

No player will feel they have more to prove. He’s won three times on LIV Golf already this year and twice more last year—yet his best finish in a major championship remains a T16. And we’re not talking a few tries here; this will be his 24th start in a major. He said at the Masters, where he entered with a ton of momentum but never factored, that the issue is putting. He's one of the few LIV players whose reputation has elevated since he made the move, and he’s elbowed his way into all the majors with strong play around the globe.

16. Sungjae Im

Age: 27 Data Golf Ranking: 25 PGA Championship starts: 6

Best PGA Championship finish: T17, 2021

He likes firm golf courses and this should fit the bill. Sungjae turned a corner in the majors recently—he had just 2 top 10s in his first 20 major championship appearances but posted a T7 at last year’s Open and a T5 at the Masters earlier this year. Finished T4 at last year’s Wells Fargo at Quail Hollow and T8 the year prior. He hasn’t properly contended to win a golf tournament in quite some time so not sure how he’d handle the pressure of Sunday at a major. But form and course wise, he jumps off the page a bit.

15. Russell Henley

Age: 36 Data Golf Ranking: 7 PGA Championship starts: 11

Best PGA Championship finish: T12, 2015

He's playing the best golf of his career in his mid-30s, posting top 10s in the final two majors in 2024 and winning the biggest tournament of his career at Bay Hill earlier. Disappointing, then, for this Georgia boy to miss the cut at the Masters, done in by an opening-round 79. We’re chalking that up to a fluke more than anything else as he bounced back with a 68 the following day and finished T8 at the RBC Heritage before a disappointing T46 in Philly. Not much success to speak of in his 11 PGA Championship starts. Doesn’t hit it nine miles so will want it to be very firm.

14. Daniel Berger

Age: 32 Data Golf Ranking: 18 PGA Championship starts: 8

Best PGA Championship finish: T12, 2018

Boog has been so very solid this year. He entered the Truist with eight straight finishes of T30 or better—including a T3 at the RBC Heritage—and wound up finishing T11. He’s ninth on TOUR in strokes gained overall this year and will be in serious contention to make Keegan Bradley’s team at Bethpage Black. It's great to see him back to his best after a few year trudge through injury hell; he missed all four majors in 2023 and hasn’t played a PGA Championship since 2022 at Southern Hills. He is, however, one of the lowest ball hitters on the PGA TOUR with an average apex of just over 85 feet. That could be an issue on a big, firm golf course with thick rough.

13. Hideki Matsuyama

Age: 33 Data Golf Ranking: 13 PGA Championship starts: 12

Best PGA Championship finish: T4, 2016

Hideki had a really good chance at the 2017 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow and has never missed a cut in a PGA Championship. He's having another very solid season which began with a record-setting 35-under par win in Hawaii and most recently a T17 at the Truist. He's often thought of as a ball striker and while he’s in the positive in both stokes gained off the tee (93rd on tour) and strokes gained approach (30th) it’s his short game (4th) that fares best compared to his peers. Hasn’t played in either of the past two Wells Fargos.

12. Brian Harman

Age: 38 Data Golf Ranking: 34 PGA Championship starts: 10

Best PGA Championship finish: T13, 2017

He sure feels a bit like golf’s forgotten man. Harman never calls attention to himself and won’t stop you in your tracks on the driving range but he’s a major champion, a winner earlier this year, and a past champion at Wells Fargo, though it was in 2017 when they held it at Eagle Rock. He entered Truist off a T3 at the RBC Heritage, but finished T46, though he’s putting up another absolutely fantastic short-game season. Harman loves when the conditions get nasty—his last two wins came during an awful week at Royal Liverpool and a brutally windy weekend in Texas.

11. Ludvig Aberg

Age: 25 Data Golf Ranking: 16 PGA Championship starts: 1

Best PGA Championship finish: CUT in only appearance

This year has brought some very good—he won the biggest title of his career at Torrey Pines and stumbled upon a chance to win the Masters late on Sunday—but also some very, very poor finishes by his lofty standards. He missed the cut in back-to-back events for the first time in his career leading into Augusta and followed up his solo 7th there (he triple bogeyed the 72nd hole) with a 54th at the RBC Heritage out of only 72 players, then 60th/69 players at Truist. Aberg remains among the TOUR's best off the tee but he has really struggled with the iron play this year, ranking 110th on tour in strokes gained approach. He said the uneven lies and shotmaking required at Augusta took him out of “playing golf swing” and locked him in on his targets, so the hope is another major championship test will have the same impact. He did not play last year’s Wells Fargo at Quail Hollow and missed the cut at Valhalla in his only PGA Championship appearance.

10. Sepp Straka

Age: 32 Data Golf Ranking: 17 PGA Championship starts: 4

Best PGA Championship finish: T7, 2023

He's having the best, most consistent season of his career coming off of a win at the Truist in a battle over Shane Lowry. It's no longer a surprise when he throws his name in there against huge fields. Sepp ranks second in strokes gained approach and eighth in strokes gained overall. He's not the longest hitter but is among the most dependable ball strikers. He’ll be rearing to go after a very disappointing missed cut at the Masters. Top-10 finish last year at Quail Hollow. But all systems are firing.

9. Xander Schauffele

Age: 31 Data Golf Ranking: 8 PGA Championship starts: 8

Best PGA Championship finish: WIN, 2024

The defending champion has been better in recent weeks (a T8 at the Masters increased his streak to 12 straight major finishes of T18 or better) but in hindsight the injury looks more and more damaging. He won half the year’s majors in 2024 and finished top 10 in his four starts after the Open but none since (though almost, with a T11 at Truist). All that said he’s been in the top 10 in five straight major championships and will no doubt back himself should he get into the mix on Sunday afternoon. He's just not quite clicking like he was last summer.

8. Shane Lowry

Age: 38 Data Golf Ranking: 15 PGA Championship starts: 13

Best PGA Championship finish: T4, 2021

Lowry has really elevated his game the last few years, going from a last-guy-in type player for the European Ryder Cup team to one of the first to essentially lock up a spot. He had a chance to win last year’s PGA after a Saturday 62 at Valhalla only to slide a bit on Sunday. That was the case at this year’s Masters, too—he was in half-contention but shot a putrid 81 on Sunday. And again at last week's Truist where he fell in a final group contest against Sepp Straka. He wants another major as bad as anyone but might prefer the next two venues over this one.

7. Tommy Fleetwood

Age: 34 Data Golf Ranking: 10 PGA Championship starts: 10

Best PGA Championship finish: T5, 2022

He’s 11th in the world ranking, 10th in Data Golf’s ranking, and an absolute machine when it comes to the top-25 finish. He has…counting…18 top 25s in his last 19 starts (including a T4 at Truist) and yet still, somehow, no wins in that stretch. It feels a statistical anomaly to put yourself in position that many times and not stumble upon a victory. He’ll have taken inspiration from his pal Rory McIlroy’s masterclass in persistence—just as Rory sometimes felt his time would never come, surely Fleetwood has had to wrestle with similar doubts as to when he’ll win on the PGA Tour. Rory never gave up and was rewarded in a massive way. There’s no reason Tommy can’t follow suit, and there’s nothing X’s and O’s wise that says his game isn’t ready to win a major championship.

6. Collin Morikawa

Age: 28 Data Golf Ranking: 5 PGA Championship starts: 5

Best PGA Championship finish: WIN, 2020

Morikawa has been super, super consistent. While he hasn’t won as much as he did in the beginning of his career—he took down two majors in his first eight tries—he’s finished T16 or better in each of the last five. He enters this one with a new caddie on the bag: Joe Greiner, who caddied for Max Homa for years before scoring a sub-in victory on Justin Thomas’s bag at the RBC Heritage. A 63 in their first round together and a T17 at the Truist has us thinking they’ll gel just fine. His putting has been a bit suspect the last month-plus, after a very good start to the year.

5. Jon Rahm

Age: 30 Data Golf Ranking: 4 PGA Championship starts: 8

Best PGA Championship finish: T4, 2018

The advanced stats remain super high on Rahm. He’s finished in the top 10 in all 19 LIV events that he’s entered; whether that’s an indictment of LIV’s field depth or a testament to consistency, I’m not sure. But facts are facts. There’s a bit of a narrative brewing that he’s lost a step since going to LIV and cynics will point to recent major performance as evidence. His T14 at the Masters looks better on Wikipedia than it did in real life—he nearly missed the cut—and last year was essentially a lost year in the majors. A victory here would bring him ¾ the way to a career Grand Slam.

4. Justin Thomas

Age: 32 Data Golf Ranking: 6 PGA Championship starts: 12

Best PGA Championship finish: WIN, 2017, 2022

He’ll love his chances. JT has been playing at a top-five level this year, finally got his first win in nearly three years at the RBC Heritage, looked great at the Truist (T2) and returns to the site of his first major championship win. The course should play rather different this time around—it was hotter, wetter and softer when he won in August than it will be this week, but the bones of the golf course are of course the same. Thomas had Joe Greiner on the bag for the Masters and RBC Heritage but has his full-time looper Matt Minister is back.

3. Bryson DeChambeau

Age: 31 Data Golf Ranking: 3 PGA Championship starts: 7

Best PGA Championship finish: 2, 2024

He's a massive figure in our game and it has nothing to do with his biceps. He's had a legitimate chance to win four of the past five major championships. He’s played great on some of those Sundays (at Pinehurst, where he broke Rory’s heart, and at Valhalla, where he nearly stole the tournament) and quite poorly on some of those Sundays—like at the Masters, where he never had control of his irons and posted a Sunday 76. Bryson bounced right back in his last two LIV starts with a top-three finish in Mexico and a victory in his very last in South Korea. He returns to a PGA TOUR staple golf course having not competed there since a T9 in 2021. He is absolutely one of the favorites.

2. Rory McIlroy

Age: 36 Data Golf Ranking: 2 PGA Championship starts: 16

Best PGA Championship finish: WIN, 2014

You couldn’t draw it up any better. He achieved Golfing Immortality at the Masters, he won the Players this year and everything from now on is gravy. Indeed, he could never make another cut again and still go down as one of the all-timers. Ability has never been the issue with Rory, and you’d think he’ll be able to play with a newfound freedom on major Sundays knowing he’s done The Thing. Remember he had 21 top-10s in majors between his 2014 PGA Championship victory and this year’s Masters. Oh, and he’s won four times at Quail Hollow, a course Jordan Spieth dubbed “Rory McIlroy Country Club.” Could he win the year’s first two majors, tie Phil Mickelson with six total, and be halfway to the calendar year Grand Slam? He won’t have felt this good heading into a major week for at least a decade. He's been the best player on the planet this year.

1. Scottie Scheffler

Age: 28 Data Golf Ranking: 1 PGA Championship starts: 5

Best PGA Championship finish: T2, 2023

Scottie burst out of a semi-lull to start the year with an eight-shot victory at The CJ Cup Byron Nelson, a perfect way to go into a surprise off week. He opted to skip the Truist Championship to make it three weeks at home heading into the one-year anniversary of stretching in a jail cell before shooting a second-round 66 at Valhalla. He has top 10s in seven of the last nine major championships each of his last four starts and it sure feels like this extended run of incredible play will yield more major championships. Interestingly enough, he has not played in either of the last two Wells Fargos at Quail Hollow, and was still in college during the 2017 PGA Championship. He’s rested, he’s ready, and it’s time he broke free from the logjam of players with two major championships. This is the week.