Almost a Quarter of The Way Through The Season - Who is Up And Who is Down?

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They say that time flies when you are having fun and we are almost a quarter of the way through the golf season and there have been several intriguing storylines that have developed. 

With the Florida swing now upon us, the most exciting time of the season is quickly looming into view as the Masters is now only seven weeks away. 

Through the first few months of the season, let’s take a look at who is up and who is down. 

Up

Luke Donald 

It’s been a fantastic few months for European Ryder Cup Captain Luke Donald. Donald, who is looking to lead Europe to more Ryder Cup success at Bethpage Black later this year, must have been ecstatic with how some of his star men have settled into action. 

Rory McIlroy will once again be expected to lead from the front and his win at the AT&T Championship showcased that his game is in sparkling form ahead of him trying to complete the career Grand Slam at Augusta. 

Ludvig Aber was a winner of the Genesis Invitational and he looks primed to be a force at the top of the game for years and is another where huge things are expected at Bethpage. 

Two men who will be looking to force their way into Ryder Cup reckoning are Sepp Straka and the Belgian Thomas Detry. Both have won this year on the PGA Tour with Straka winning the Farmers Insurance Open and Detry the Phoenix Open. 

Last year was a bad one for European golfers as for the first time since the mid 90s all four majors landed with American players. So far this year the leaderboards across PGA Tournaments have had a distinct European flavour and Donald will hope that will continue all the way until September. 

Up


Fans all over the world 

Yes it’s a generic title but after years of division, for the first time in a long time there seems to be a real clamour for the game to be unified following the PGA Tour / LIV split. 

With the best players occupying either Tour, only on four occasions do the best from both worlds collide but there is significant hope that the stalemate is almost drawing to a close. 

President Trump is a huge golfer and despite hosting many LIV events, it seems he believes that a peace deal would be best for the sport and conversations have taken place to allow a merger between the two rival factions to take place. 

Whilst the split in golf has been great for the players and some have been able to significantly boost their bank balances, for the everyday golf fan, the dilution of the game at the highest level has led to poor viewership numbers and once famous events no longer hold the prestige they once did. 

What the new face of professional golf would look like once the merger has been made is anybody’s guess, but with some believing that a solution could be reached as early as April, there looks to be a growing belief that the best will take on the best on a much more frequent basis. Here’s to hoping that a deal can be made swiftly, it wouldn’t just aid the players but also help the entire game.

TGL

Whilst TGL may not be everyone’s cup of tea, the signs through its early inceptions are positive and there’s a huge chance that TGL is here to stay.

Offering a glimpse of what golf could be in the future, the use of the hi-tech simulator and interpretative greens have proved to be a hit, and with the competition getting stronger and the matches tighter, the first season of TGL has been a success and this is backed up by the fairly solid viewing numbers that it has been able to pull.

One new feature that the TGL has recently introduced is the addition of one match contracts. Tony Finau was the first player to be offered the opportunity to tee it up last week for Atlanta Drive last week and this week it will be the turn of Nick Dunlap. 

The introduction of the one match contracts is a great idea and ensures that many more of our PGA favourites could well tee it up at TGL before the season is over, more importantly it offers a potential way in for LIV stars to feature at some point in the future. 

Whilst the introduction of any LIV players would be dependent on a deal being struck, what is clear is that the TGL should only get bigger and better from this point onwards. 

TGL


Downs

Scottie Scheffler 

It seems ludicrous to include Scottie Scheffler on our list of downs, but the world number one set the bar so incredibly high last season, and so far through his 2025 he is yet to get his season off the ground. 

Having had to delay the start of his 2025 due to a nagging hand injury that he picked up over Christmas, Scheffler made his reappearance at the AT&T Championship and once again posted a top ten effort.

Considered a great return to action, Scheffler was unable to make it three Phoenix Opens in four years when he finished well down the field following a disastrous back nine where the wheels well and truly fell off. 

If that was uncharacteristic, Scheffler showed that his blow up in Phoenix was just a blip and he returned back to his usual form at the Genesis Invitational where he finished third. 

Scheffler would have been disappointed that as of yet he hasn’t been able to win this season but he will want to change that over the next few weeks. 

A winner at both the Arnold Palmer and the only man in history to win successive Players Championships, he will hope that a return to previous winning scenes will see him trigger his best golf. 

Keegan Bradley

If we are including Luke Donald in our list of ups, it’s then only right that we look at where Keegan Bradley fits and you would have to say that the American Ryder Cup Captain would have liked to have seen more from his best players.

We have already documented the form of his best player Scottie Scheffler, but one man he will hope will return back to the course with a bang is Xander Schauffele.

Having won two of the game’s four majors last season, Schauffele is a player reborn. Having shed the unwanted tag of being the best player in golf not to have won a major, Schauffele now looks like he’s going to win every time he tees it up.

Having finished second in the FedEx Championship last year, Schauffele would have had high hopes of going one place better this year, but a nagging rib injury has seen him yet to make an appearance this season although that should change at the Arnold Palmer. 

Americans have had a tough time of things on the PGA Tour so far this season. Justin Thomas is still without a win in over two years, Jordan Spieth and Tony Finau are working their way back from injuries, Max Homa looks completely lost and those over at LIV have had to watch Adrian Meronk and Joaquin Niemann claim the first two LIV titles of the season. 

Bradley himself has had some mixed results and his dreams of becoming the first playing captain in Ryder Cup history looks far-fetched at this stage. 

He will hope his stars can get inside the winner’s circle quickly and peak just in time for when form around the Ryder Cup really matters.