Hunter

Mahan

Mahan was a mid-tournament WD at the Palmetto Championship, three starts. There was no official injury released but that is the most likely culprit for these WDs to start piling up. The 39-year-old is playing this season on a Top 50 Career Earnings exemption but he hasn’t found much success. He arrived with a 4-for-24 record on the season to sit at 223rd in the FedExCup standings.

There’s been nothing official released, but Mahan’s scheduled 1:43 pm ET tee time has come and gone and he’s showing WD at the bottom of the leaderboard. His playing competitors David Lingmerth and Seamus Power show R2 activity on their respective Shot Trackers, while his is dormant, becoming the second WD in R2 and the sixth overall on the week. The 39-year-old, who opened with 7-over 78 (1 birdie, 4 bogeys, 2 doubles), checked in 4-for-21 on the season, missing 13 of this last 14 cuts, interrupted only by a season-best T54 at the Wells Fargo two starts ago, where he was a promising T10 after R1 (68-75-69-76). This will be his fifth mid-tourney WD in 449 events, first since last season’s Farmers during R2 (knee), where he was 9-over thru nine holes and 12-over total.

The six-time PGA Tour winner hasn’t seen the winner’s circle since 2014 at The Barclays, but perhaps a more urgent problem is making it to weekend action – something Mahan hasn’t done since a T-64 finish in December at the Mayakoba Classic. The 38-year-old California native has gone 3-for-18 this season, and he comes into Tampa off a missed cut last week in New Orleans where he partnered with Bill Haas at the Zurich Classic. In eight previous starts at Innisbrook Resort, Mahan has made five cuts. His best finished was 23rd in 2008, and he missed the cut in his most recent appearance in 2019. Last season, the Oklahoma State alum didn’t make a single cut in six starts. Mahan entered the 2019-20 season on a Minor Medical Extension and made eight cuts in 21 starts, with his best result coming at The RSM Classic (T-15). He finished No. 184 in the standings to miss the FedExCup Playoffs for the fourth consecutive season.

It’s been a bit since the 38-year-old has been in the top 10 after R1, most recently 2 years, 3 months ago. That came at the 2018 opposite-field Barbasol, where he was T5 and eventually a 54-hole co-leader, before fading to T7 (66-68-64-71), his most recent top-10 finish on TOUR. The Oklahoma State product found six (of 14) fairways and 13 greens in regulation, outflanking a lone bogey-4 at 16 with six birdies at 2, 6, 10, 11, 17 and 18. He registered 1.538 putts per GIR with 26 total putts.

Mahan entered the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open on the heels of 10 straight missed cuts, dating back to the 2019 Wyndham Championship. He had been outside of the top 80 after all but one of his rounds played during that stretch so his form wasn’t particularly close. That changed in Las Vegas when he pieced together three straight sub-70 rounds and then closed with a 72, good for a T58 finish. The bad news? Mahan lost 11.2 strokes tee-to-green that week and was skating by on a hot putter (+9.2 strokes gained putting). He hasn’t gained strokes tee-to-green, for the week, since the 2019 Farmers Insurance Open so gamers can likely keep him off their radar for the time beind.

The California native opened his week with a 3-over 75 at the North Course. Turning his attention toward the tougher track today (South), Mahan started on the back nine and swallowed six bogeys and a triple bogey before the turn. That is when he called it quits due to a knee injury. Mahan is playing on a Minor Medical Extension and now has just one start remaining, in need of 314.882 FedExCup Points to fulfill those terms. That would require a win or playoff loss most weeks but he’s collected just one top 10 since 2016 so the odds aren’t in his favor.

The 2012 champ has missed the cut in three of his six visits to the Golf Club of Houston since that win. The 37-year-old Dallas resident is still searching for his lost form. He’s missed the FedExCup Playoffs in four straight seasons, compiling just one top 10 along the way. Mahan has four starts on a Minor Medical Extension, needing 234 FEC Points to fulfill the terms. Gamers should wait for a spark before reinvesting in weekly or season-long formats.

The 37-year-old hasn’t finished in the top 125 in the FEC standings since 2015. He hasn’t recorded a top-10 finish on TOUR since T4 at the 2015 Deutsche Bank 86 starts ago. The California native arrives 7-for-16 on the season with two top 25s, most recently a T15 at The RSM Classic back in November. He ranks 32nd in SG: Off-the-Tee (.371) but 176th in SG: Tee-to-Green (-.652) and 174th in Scoring Average (71.808).

Mahan has missed the cut in each of the past three appearances on the Monterey Peninsula since a marginal 54th-place showing the 2015 edition of the event. He has had a modicum of success in the past, placing sixth in 2014, while posting a respectable 16th-place in 2013 and 15th in 2012. Mahan is getting a little long in the tooth, however, not hitting it as far and hard as he used to. However, if he is going to have any success, Pebble Beach doesn’t necessarily require you to be a masher. His struggles in the Scrambling department, as well as his dismal ranking of No. 161 in Putts Per Round (29.56) have been holding him back.

The California native is 3-for-4 at the Safeway with two top 25s, a T13 last year and a T3 on debut in 2015 (70-68-68-70). He finished 159th in the FedExCup standings last season on Past Champion status, going 12-for-21 with four top 25s and one top 10, a T7 at the opposite-field Barbasol back in July (four starts ago) as a 54-hole co-leader. The 36-year-old tried the Web.com Tour Finals for a second year in a row and this time succeeded, going 3-for-3 with two top 20s, including a T2 at the DAP Championship, the second Finals event. He ended up 9th in Finals Money, excluding The 25, and begins the season 18th in the Priority Rankings and 16th in the reshuffle. Mahan’s won six times on TOUR in 399 events, most recently the 2014 Barclays.