The PGA TOUR is taking a break over the holidays but many gamers are drafting for the 2023 schedule.
Following my yearly tradition, I will provide my top targets for season-long gamers.
I’m breaking out my top 150 in chunks of 25 so if you missed the first four, here they are:
50. Kurt Kitayama
Baseline Ranking: 60
1-Year Starts: 26
Notes: He’s bagged four podium finishes in his last 19 PGA TOUR starts. He ranked top 70 in strokes gained tee-to-green, birdie rate, and eagle rate, last season. He’s a strong hole-by-hole scorer with big-finish upside.
49. Jason Day
Baseline Ranking: 39
1-Year Starts: 20
Notes: Things were looking rough for the Aussie then he ended the fall with top 25s in four of his last five starts to give gamers more hope ahead of the 2023 schedule. He’s found just five top 10s over the last two seasons. That’s nothing to sneeze at but he had racked up at least five top 10s in eight straight seasons before that, so needing two seasons to get the same output was concerning. Add in his long history with injuries and he’s a high-risk, high-reward type of draft option.
48. Mito Pereira
Baseline Ranking: 34
1-Year Starts: 22
Notes: There is no denying his talent, just look at his baseline ranking which sits at 34th on TOUR. However, they say you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. If that’s the case then Pereira is a LIV golfer. I would avoid him personally for that reason because I’d hate to lose out on a relatively early draft pick when the signs he was leaving the tour were right in front of our eyes. If you think those rumors are false then you’ll likely get a decent deal on him in drafts this year.
47. Andrew Putnam
Baseline Ranking: 43
1-Year Starts: 29
Notes: It kind of looked like his career trajectory was taking a turn for the worse when he posted a 7-for-16 record in 2020 but he’s rebounded with 42 cuts made over his last 70 starts, turning 17 of those into top 25s. Putnam is not scaring anyone off the tee (188th in driving distance) but his short game stacks up with the very best on TOUR. That will lead to a lot of spike rounds and spike weeks in general, but overall it’s ideal to target him on weeks where distance is not a major benefit.
46. Taylor Pendrith
Baseline Ranking: 50
1-Year Starts: 17
Notes: The Canadian impressed with a trio of top 10s last season but a rib injury derailed his chances at East Lake. The 31-year-old posted four straight top 15s when he eventually returned to action and also signed off in the fall with a top 15 at the RSM. This big hitter was 10th in GIR last season, 49th in eagle rate, and 26th in birdies per round. That’s elite level scoring, as long as he stays healthy.
45. Davis Riley
Baseline Ranking: 70
1-Year Starts: 26
Notes: The 26-year-old flashed his potential earlier this year, posting six straight top 15s at one point, kicked off by a top 5 at the Zurich Classic team event. He faded to the finish line from there but still ended the season ranked 16th in birdies per round (4.15). His adjusted driving accuracy numbers were pretty rough so you may want to target him on courses that don’t heavily penalize the errant tee shots. If he can tidy up the driver, even better.
44. Thomas Detry
Baseline Ranking: 44
1-Year Starts: 25
Notes: The Belgian is known for his close calls on the DP World Tour and he’s already building the same reputation during his first full season on the PGA TOUR. He snagged five top 15s in his first seven starts of the season. He’s talked about moving his family to the Dominican Republic which lets you know what kind of course vibe he likely prefers. We should probably give hiim a bump when playing by the coast but there aren’t that many coastal events during the meat of the 2023 schedule.
43. K.H. Lee
Baseline Ranking: 46
1-Year Starts: 27
Notes: He continues to play a very busy schedule, racking up at least 25 starts in all four seasons out on TOUR. His consistency is improving as his missed cuts have dropped each season (13, 12, 11, 7). He was just 106th in birdie rate last season, though, which is less than ideal for leagues that heavily reward hole-by-hole scoring.
42. Tom Hoge
Baseline Ranking: 38
1-Year Starts: 28
Notes: The man from Fargo gained strokes on approach in 70% of his measured rounds last season which was bettered by just three golfers (Russell Henley, Shane Lowry, and Will Zalatoris). It was a career year for Hoge, no doubt about that. He made it to East Lake and finished 10th. That was a bit surprising but he had finished top 55 in the two previous seasons, so also not a complete shock. Currently 37th in the OWGR, that also means he’ll be entered into the bigger events this season. That provides a higher ceiling but it also means that he’ll have fewer “weak field” events to bully. It should be a good test for Hoge and I’m curious to see how he responds to the challenge.
41. Christiaan Bezuidenhout
Baseline Ranking: 30
1-Year Starts: 23
Notes: His game reminds me a bit of Ian Poulter as they don’t rely on distance but really shine with their short game. Usually when you rely on the short game, you tend to get boom-or-bust results but both of them do it in a way that keeps their scores steady and keeps them over the cutline on a weekly basis. Bez went 20-for-24 last season, which was his first full season with a PGA TOUR card. Seeing some more courses for the second time around can only help. He was just 147th in par breakers so the hole-by-hole scoring is boring so only give him a bump in formats that rely mostly on finish position and earning paychecks.
40. Adam Hadwin
Baseline Ranking: 42
1-Year Starts: 23
Notes: The Canadian has finished top 65 in the FedExCup race in five of the last six seasons. Your paying for consistency and a high volume of starts when you pick Hadwin.
39. Tyrrell Hatton
Baseline Ranking: 17
1-Year Starts: 23
Notes: Tournament volume continues to be the only thing holding him back from the top tier. Hatton stayed under the 20-start mark in every PGA TOUR season he’s played, spending his fair share of time on the DP World circuit. While nothing is confirmed, he’s also been a popular name tossed around in LIV Golf rumors for the 2023 campaign. Proceed with caution.
38. Denny McCarthy
Baseline Ranking: 37
1-Year Starts: 26
Notes: He was 2nd on TOUR in strokes gained putting last season. He’s now finished 22nd or better in that category in all five seasons played. We can safely call him one of the best putters on the planet. He goes through stretches where his ball-striking is more than serviceable so you have to imagine he’ll pair that up eventually to snag a win or two.
37. Alex Smalley
Baseline Ranking: 51
1-Year Starts: 28
Notes: The Duke product really fits the mold of a breakout candidate. He bagged nine top 25s during his rookie campaign, in 30 events played. Seeing some courses for the second time and knowing more about travel schedule on the PGA TOUR can only help. He’s already shown his upside, signing off in the fall with three straight top 11s. He was top 60 in off-the-tee and approach play last season.
36. Cam Davis
Baseline Ranking: 35
1-Year Starts: 25
Notes: The youngster was 34th in birdie rate and 9th in eagle rate last season. There is no denying he can heat up with the best of them and rack up birdies in bunches. He turns 28 in February so in theory, the best is yet to come for the tall Aussie. He brings an all-around balanced attack to the table but his game is also trending toward off-the-tee and putting being his strengths which is a good mold to land on.
35. Hideki Matsuyama
Baseline Ranking: 32
1-Year Starts: 21
Notes: Matsuyama missed just one cut last season (21 starts) but also had two mid-tourney WDs and remains a pre-tourney threat to back out, any time he’s in a listed field. His baseline rank of just 32nd could be viewed from two different angles. You could say it’s lower than it should be as he played through some neck pain. On the flip side, you could say his performance is dipping due to injuries that aren’t getting better with age and the results will start to show that decline. Personally, I would let others deal with the anxiety of owning Matsuyama but he also brings top-tier upside to the equation, for anyone willing to take on the risk.
34. Mackenzie Hughes
Baseline Ranking: 71
1-Year Starts: 24
Notes: He’s one of the top short-game players in the world and talked about adding distance this fall. The returns were immediate with a win at the Sanderson Farms Championship. Hughes posted average driving distance longer than the field in just 45% of his rounds last season but we saw that jump to 80% in the fall. Matt Fitzpatrick is a great example of how lethal a little distance can be when you add it to elite short-game skills. It’s likely too much to ask for him to join the same tier at Fitz in 2023 but there is definitely a lot of untapped potential that could reward gamers that jump in now.
33. Emiliano Grillo
Baseline Ranking: 47
1-Year Starts: 25
Notes: Grillo found his putting stroke in 2022 and turned that into four top-5 finishes in a nine-start stretch. A balky putter has always been the knocked on the standout ball-striker but if he’s fixed that part of his game for good then look out.
32. Keith Mitchell
Baseline Ranking: 36
1-Year Starts: 22
Notes: Mitchell popped with a career-high of top 10s (6). That was two better than his previous best. He also landed 10 top 25s which was four better than his previous best. How’d he get the job done? Mitchell ranked 4th in strokes gained off-the-tee with a whopping 0.761 strokes gained per round. Elite drivers are generally the safest asset, when healthy, and usually bring big-finish upside to the table as well. That’s what we saw with Mitchell in 2022 and I would expect more of the same after the holiday break.
31. Maverick McNealy
Baseline Ranking: 31
1-Year Starts: 25
Notes: Similar to Patrick Rodgers who was featured in part four, McNealy had a standout career at Stanford but is still trying to translate those skills into PGA TOUR titles. The 27-year-old has 11 top 10s in 99 career TOUR starts. He was top 50 off-the-tee last season and top 20 in putting. That putter is really where he separates from the field most of the time, and it keeps him hanging around some weeks where others would miss the cut. He landed top 20s in four of his last five starts this fall and it really feels like that maiden win is just around the corner. Of course, the same could be said for Rodgers for the past five years or so.
30. Seamus Power
Baseline Ranking: 33
1-Year Starts: 24
Notes: He ran into a mid-year slump but snapped out in a big way with a win at the Bermuda Championship followed by two more top 5s to end the fall schedule. Currently ranked 1st in the FedExCup, there is a chance he goes drafted a bit too early but he’s likely good value if he drops outside of the top 30 in your draft.
29. Adam Scott
Baseline Ranking: 29
1-Year Starts: 18
Notes: It’s hard to know how content some golfers are, as they age. Scott was one of those golfers for me. Then he went and added Steve Williams to his bag for the big events in 2023, which lets us know he still cares and wants to add to his legacy. Scott has four seasons over the course of his career where he’s reached nine or more top 10s for the season. It would be a lot to ask of him to reach that number at this point of his career but I think his increased focus on the big events will really help him pad for the money totals, for those gamers playing in leagues that use money earned as the key scoring metric.
28. Russell Henley
Baseline Ranking: 27
1-Year Starts: 18
Notes: If you’re having the conversation of the best iron players on TOUR, Henley has to be in the conversation. He gained strokes on approach in 79% of his rounds last season which was easily the best on TOUR (Lowry and Zalatoris the next closest at 72%). Fans who have watched him his whole career and don’t follow the stats probably still assume he’s a great putter but the stats have said otherwise for years now. If he combined his early-career driving and putting stats with his current approach stats then he’d be one of the best players on the planet. That’s unrealistic, though, but you still get a valuable asset when drafting him in season-long leagues.
27. Taylor Montgomery
Baseline Ranking: 41
1-Year Starts: 25
Notes: The UNLV product was a machine in 2022, styling top 15s in 19 of his last 25 starts, across the Korn Ferry Tour and PGA TOUR. He was 20th in birdie rate this fall while also scooping up a whopping seven eagles. He’s quickly proving to be an elite level scorer with steady, big-finish upside.
26. Keegan Bradley
Baseline Ranking: 26
1-Year Starts: 20
Notes: While he still irritates gamers on the greens, his putter was actually above TOUR average last season (88th in strokes gained putting). That turned into six top 10s which was his highest tally since the 2014 campagin. Then he stayed hot with a win at the ZOZO in the fall. Bradley appears to be re-peaking in his mid-30s and his 2023 performance will likely be dictated by whether or not he can maintain momentum with the flat stick. We know his ball-striking is in the top tier and has been for nearly all of his career.