125. Russell Knox
6-Month SG Rank:
1362-Year SG Rank: 115
Notes: The Scot remains one of the best iron/wedge players on TOUR. The problem is he lost strokes putting in more than 60 percent of his measured rounds last season and that was after losing strokes around-the-green in 60 percent of his rounds as well. The short game woes are nothing new and they continually cap his week-to-week consistency.
124. Brandt Snedeker
6-Month SG Rank:
1282-Year SG Rank: 130
Notes: The 40-year-old racked up 11 missed cuts last season. It was just the second time in his career that he’s reached double digits in that category (12 MCs in 2009). Snedeker also missed the cut in four of his six starts this fall. The consistent results are a thing of the past for Sneds but you can’t ignore a nine-time PGA TOUR winner which is why I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt, having him ranked inside of the top 125 despite his 6-month and 2-year baseline ranks being 128th and 130th.
123. Kramer Hickok
6-Month SG Rank:
992-Year SG Rank: 167
Notes: Hickok posted two top 10s in his last eight starts of the year. He’ll be carrying over as much confidence as he’s likely had at any point of his career. Is the 29-year-old Texan ready to breakout and become a top-100 fantasy golf option? Or will he regress to his two-year baseline rank of 167th? This ranking has him somewhere in between but his trajectory will likely go one way or the other when play resumes after the holidays.
122. Scott Stallings
6-Month SG Rank:
1372-Year SG Rank: 117
Notes: Stallings gets the job done with top-heavy finishes. He has two or more top 10s in 8-of-11 seasons played and he already posted two this fall. As a result, he has finished between 84th and 129th eight straight seasons. We can set our expectations for him to repeat that same level of success.
121. Matt Jones
6-Month SG Rank:
1592-Year SG Rank: 93
Notes: After a mid-career hiccup, he’s now cracked the top 100 in the FedExCup standings in three straight seasons. Over that stretch he’s gone 55-for-80 with seven top 10s including a win. It’s hard to get excited about drafting a golfer that lost 0.422 strokes per round approaching-the-green last season, but his short game was some of the best last season (18th around-the-green and 55th putting). His three-year results suggest he’s worth a top-100 pick but the underlying stats (and age) are going the other way so I would prefer to wait a little longer before drafting Jones in season-long leagues.
120. Stewart Cink
6-Month SG Rank:
1412-Year SG Rank: 85
Notes: The saying “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” just isn’t true in the game of golf. Cink was all the evidence you need of that as he added distance at the start of last season and also added the DECADE system to his course management bag of tricks. Those two tweaks combined helped him grab a two-win season, after going winless since 2009. So why isn’t Cink higher on the rankings? He lost strokes to the field in nine of his last 10 starts of the year. The 48-year-old is not getting any younger so it’s harder to trust that he’ll just bounce back from a slump like that.
119. Sahith Theegala
6-Month SG Rank:
1482-Year SG Rank: 141
Notes: The young prospect hasn’t shown a lot of consistency yet but he did give us a peek at his upside this fall when he led or co-led after each of the first three rounds of the Sanderson Farms Championship. Some golfers will go years before they ever find themselves sleeping on a 54-hole lead so it’s very promising to see him land that spot so soon in his journey. As you can see from his baseline performance ranks above, this 119th spot in the rankings is baking in some of that breakout potential for a young golfer who is still getting comfortable on the big stage.
118.Keith Mitchell
6-Month SG Rank: 98
2-Year SG Rank: 151
Notes: Despite his ho-hum baseline metrics, he continues to crush the FedExCup standings because his good weeks are really good. Mitchell landed four top 10s last season and overall has 13 top 10s in 111 career starts. The Georgia Bulldog already tacked on a pair of top-12 finishes this fall. That’s after ending last season with top 10s in two of his last four events played. The ideal fantasy format for Mitchell is one that allows you to set it and forget it because the good outweighs the bad by season’s end but they’ll likely be a lot of finishes outside of the top 50 along the way.
117. Lee Westwood
6-Month SG Rank:
1262-Year SG Rank: 60
Notes: Last year I either excluded Westwood or had him ranked really low because I didn’t think he would make enough Stateside starts to be worth the pick. He proved me wrong very early with back-to-back runner-up finishes during the Florida Swing. If you remove those two results he had just one other top 20 in 19 total events played. That is the Westwood I was expecting and will be expecting again in 2022. The reason you do draft the Englishman is that he’s proven he can still post a top 5 against any field. They just arrive less frequently than they used to.
116. Lucas Glover
6-Month SG Rank:
1292-Year SG Rank: 102
Notes: The 42-year-old has been alternating so-so seasons with standout seasons for half a decade now. His FedExCup positions over the last five seasons are as follows: 46th, 118th, 29th, 135th, 43rd. That is not a good sign for his 2022 campaign if he maintains that same back-and-forth trend. He remains one of the best ball-strikers on TOUR, gaining strokes off-the-tee in 69 percent of his measured rounds last season and 54 percent in the approach department. The putter remains an issue.
115.Lee Hodges
6-Month SG Rank:
1662-Year SG Rank: 103
Notes: The 26-year-old opened his rookie campaign with a 5-for-6 record. He is now 10-for-12 over the course of his young PGA TOUR career. Hodges posted nine top 10s on the Korn Ferry Tour to earn his way up to the big leagues. There is serious breakout potential here. I have him sitting at 115 in the rankings but personally I would probably reach a little sooner to chase some upside.
114. Kevin Kisner
6-Month SG Rank:
1502-Year SG Rank: 83
Notes: The Georgia Bulldog never relied heavily on his ball-striking but it became a major issue for him last season as he gained strokes on approach in just 42 percent of his measured rounds. Unless there is a hidden injury involved, this seems like an issue where one or two small tweaks could fix everything and put him right back in the mix as a top-50 fantasy golf option.
113. Nick Hardy
6-Month SG Rank:
1332-Year SG Rank: 88
Notes: If you played some Korn Ferry DFS contests last year, Hardy was probably a staple in your lineups. He went 34-for-41 on the KFT last season while converting 10 of those paydays into top-10 finishes. He continued that steady play with cuts made in three of his four starts to kick off his PGA TOUR rookie season. What I like about Hardy is how he got the job done, ranking 4th in GIR Percentage on the Korn Ferry circuit, rarely landing fewer greens than the field for any event he played.
112. Harry Higgs
6-Month SG Rank:
1302-Year SG Rank: 121
Notes: He remains a fan favorite but you don’t get fantasy points for that. However, he does have the tools to get himself in contention and stay in the mix, unlike some other lower-tier golfers. Higgs has a runner-up finish in two straight seasons which have been crucial to helping him finish top 75 in the FedExCup race both years. If you take away those two big finishes (why would you do that!) then his FedExCup finishes would be closer to his two-year baseline rank (121st).
111. Greyson Sigg
6-Month SG Rank:
1212-Year SG Rank: 96
Notes: The 26-year-old Georgia Bulldog had an amazing rookie campaign on the Korn Ferry Tour. He posted two wins and eight other top 10s, in 35 events played. That was good for 2nd on the KFT Money List. Sigg has eased into his PGA TOUR season with four cuts made in seven tries with a T22 at the Bermuda Championship being the highlight. Given what we saw last year in the minor leagues, it seems it is just a matter of time before the top 25s start piling up for the Augusta native.
110. Garrick Higgo
6-Month SG Rank:
1492-Year SG Rank: 56
Notes: The 22-year-old South African announced himself in a big way when he came over and won the Palmetto Championship in what was just his second career start on the PGA TOUR. DP World Tour fans were well-aware of the youngster at that point as he won two of his previous four starts overseas before winning the Palmetto. As you can see from his 6-month baseline rank above, his numbers took a big hit after that breakout win. That is somewhat to be expected as the victory led to a change in schedule and a change in field strength. There is no denying his potential, though.
109. David Lipsky
6-Month SG Rank:
1182-Year SG Rank: 106
Notes: The 33-year-old is finally carrying a PGA TOUR card. He’s not off to a strong start (1-for-6 this fall) but has the tools to win on the big stage. Over the years, Lipsky has piled up two DP World Tour wins and a win on the Korn Ferry Tour. That KFT win was a part of a season that saw him post seven top 10s in 32 events played. Good for 12th on the money list. At 105th in driving distance last season (24th in accuracy) he is better suited for courses that don’t demand power.
108. Charl Schwartzel
6-Month SG Rank:
1532-Year SG Rank: 105
Notes: The South African didn’t receive a lot of fantasy hype in 2021 but had a surprisingly consistent season. Schwartzel went 18-for-27 including a pair of runner-up finishes and a third-place finish. Landing 10 top 25s, that eclipsed his total top 25s from the previous three seasons combined. He finished 61st or better in the FedExCup race in six of his first seven seasons on TOUR and last year fell right in line with that (51st). His fall performance does not inspire confidence ahead of 2022 but his overall numbers from last year are solid enough to draft him around 100th with confidence.
107. Dylan Frittelli
6-Month SG Rank:
1522-Year SG Rank: 114
Notes: It’s been more than a year now since he picked up a boatload of yards with the driver. For years he was a steady contender overseas. I’m curious to see if he can put more of his focus back on the rest of his game now that distance is in his favor. With that theory in mind, I don’t mind the idea of reaching for him a bit in drafts, or at least targeting him if he falls past 110 or so. At worst you get a golfer that has finished Top 125 FedExCup in three straight seasons but he also brings top-50 upside to the equation.
106. Nick Taylor
6-Month SG Rank:
1442-Year SG Rank: 119
Notes: The Canadian flirted with 30 starts last season and earned a paycheck in 18 of his 29 starts. Sounds like a great year, right? Wrong. Taylor finished just 141st in the FedExCup race because he landed just three top 25s and not a single top 10. The consistent cut-making is promising at least and if he performs at his two-year baseline rate, we should expect him to find his way back into the FedExCup Playoffs.
105. Patton Kizzire
6-Month SG Rank:
1122-Year SG Rank: 112
Notes: Kizzire made it to East Lake in 2018 but went the wrong direction after that, finishing 122nd and 172nd in the FedExCup race in the following two seasons. The Auburn product got back on track last season with five top 10s (63rd in the FEC standings). Driving accuracy remains the key issue for him which helps explain why most of his top finishes on TOUR have come on less-than-driver courses that allow him to club down a bit more and not rely on the big stick.
104. Denny McCarthy
6-Month SG Rank:
1152-Year SG Rank: 97
Notes: The 28-year-old has posted a 40-for-60 record since the start of the 2020 campaign. That is a stellar cuts-made ratio, especially for a golfer that leans so heavily on the short game. It helps that McCarthy is one of the best putters on TOUR. For someone that gains so many strokes putting, it seems like it is just a matter of time before he strings together an out-of-this-world putting week that carries him to his maiden PGA TOUR title.
103. Zach Johnson
6-Month SG Rank:
1082-Year SG Rank: 74
Notes: From one great putter to the next, ZJ ranked 5th on TOUR in strokes gained putting last season. The problem is that his driving distance is getting slightly further from the TOUR average and he’s not getting any younger. There are still a handful of courses they play each year where he’s not at a big disadvantage off the tee. For the others, he’ll continue to lean heavily on the putter in order to keep up.
102. Matt Wallace
6-Month SG Rank:
1402-Year SG Rank: 65
Notes: The Englishman has a bit of a temper but his results aren’t as erratic as his emotions. Wallace is 36-for-51 over the course of his PGA TOUR career and six of those cuts made have doubled as top 10s. However, if we look at his worldwide results, he missed the cut in six of his last nine starts to end the year. You would hope the holidays provide a nice reset and he gets back on track but that end-of-year slide is why he sits just outside of the top 100 on my rankings instead of hovering around the top 75 where he could easily belong.
101. Matt Kuchar
6-Month SG Rank:
1072-Year SG Rank: 67
Notes: The 43-year-old nearly missed the FedExCup Playoffs for the first time in his career. He ended up at 122nd when all was said and done. What was the problem? We all know Kuchar relies on accuracy, not distance but he actually hit fewer fairways than the field in 8-of-12 events at one point in the season this year. He appears to have fixed the issues with positive accuracy stats in five of his last six starts to end the year. It’s very possible he returns as a top-50 fantasy option in 2022 but with him approaching his mid-40s, I would prefer to look elsewhere unless he lands in your lap, later in the draft.
That does it for part one (of three). Be on the lookout for part two which should be going live later this week.
