ATLANTA – It’s a testament to the parity in professional golf that after 183 stroke play rounds this season on the PGA Tour, the circuit’s Player of the Year Award may be decided by the season’s final turn on Sunday at the Tour Championship.
The buzz over potential POY candidates always crescendos at East Lake and more often than not there’s a distinct front-runner and a few would-be contenders but given the wild ride 2023 has been both on and off the course it should be no surprise 2023 is an outlier.
For most the list of candidates begins and ends with Scottie Scheffler and Jon Rahm. Both have been impressively and objectively brilliant and stand out even among the season’s best at East Lake. Where the debate takes a curious turn is that neither has won since April 9.
Rahm would appear to be the favorite to claim the Jack Nicklaus Award for the first time with four victories, including the Masters where he won his second major, along with trips to the award ceremony at The Sentry to begin the year, The American Express and the Genesis Invitational. The Spaniard has had opportunities since Augusta National, including runner-up stops at The Open and Mexico Open, but hasn’t been nearly as consistent the second half of the year.
It’s been a similar story for Scheffler, who in 22 events has two victories – the WM Phoenix Open and The Players Championship – but he’s been far more consistent. In 13 starts since TPC Sawgrass, he’s finished outside the top 10 just three times, a run that includes a distant second at the PGA Championship and a Sunday loss to Viktor Hovland at last week’s BMW Championship.
Without the benefit of Sunday’s finish at East Lake, which will begin with Rahm and Scheffler both tied for fifth place and nine shots off the lead held by Hovland, the question has been one of quality or quantity?
This year’s POY vote has forced players to dive deeper than wins and losses, particularly when it comes to Scheffler’s statistical brilliance. He leads the Tour in strokes gained: off the tee, approach the green, tee-to-green and total. His strokes gained: tee-to-green average of +2.74 is second only to Tiger Woods’ historic mark of +2.98 in 2007. It’s a body of work that’s impossible to ignore.
“It depends what you value,” McIlroy said when asked his choice for POY. “If you go on total wins it’s hard, it’s going to be really difficult because Scottie could end up with the best ball-striking season of all time. He’s hit the ball as good, if not better, than Tiger hit it in 2000. Which is the benchmark for all of us.
“But I think Jon probably has a little more to show for his year. But I think it could come down to this week and who performs. It’s a two-horse race between Jon and Scottie.”
Most agree with McIlroy’s assessment, but in fairness to Hovland, he has two victories (the Memorial and BMW Championship), eight top-10 finishes and was runner-up to Brooks Koepka at the PGA Championship and could gain even more PoY traction with a victory on Sunday.
“I think this week will be pretty important in determining who may win that,” Xander Schauffele said. “Having had an incredible week or finish a couple nights ago and he won Memorial as well. [Hovland] is going into this week second [in points]. I really don’t know. I’m curious who the nominees [for PoY] will be once you log into that.”
But if Hovland has played his way onto the POY ballot, it’s not clear if he’ll be able to wrestle enough votes away from either Rahm or Scheffler based on a straw poll of players this week.
“It’s tough,” Rickie Fowler admitted. “You can get lost in how someone has played the last few months over what someone has done all year and you can forget about the fall and stuff. But I feel like Scottie’s had the overall better year, consistent wise.”
It was a similar scenario in 2021 when the final POY vote came down to Rahm and Patrick Cantlay, who had the numbers on his side with a Tour-leading four victories but no top 10s in the majors. Rahm had just one victory at the U.S. Open but posted a staggering 15 top-10 finishes and closed out the season with a runner-up at the Tour Championship, but the voters (the players) saw it differently giving Cantlay the nod for the Nicklaus Award.
Depending on Sunday’s outcome and with both players within striking distance of the FedExCup, the decision will come down to how much consistency means to players.
“If someone won two majors and another event and missed every other cut compared to someone who won three regular events and then played solidly throughout, you’d probably pick the one with the more consistent record,” Fowler said. “There’s such a value on majors and that’s what you want to have a nice number in on your resume at the end of your career, but I think a lot more goes into the overall package of consistent play. You can argue both sides.”
Sunday’s outcome doesn’t guarantee the POY vote, but in the FedExCup era, the season-long champion was awarded the Nicklaus hardware eight out of 16 seasons and with the margin between Rahm, Scheffler and possibly Hovland so narrow a strong finish at East Lake will likely go a long way to decide who wins the closest POY bout in a decade
