PGA Tour Midseason Awards: MVP, Most Underrated, Biggest Surprise and more

Last week, just six of the world’s top 50 male golfers teed it up at the Honda Classic. Some lamented the relatively paltry showing as a sad sign for a once-great tournament. But I chose to think of it as golf’s equivalent to the All-Star Break. It’s been go, go, go for the game’s top players since this year’s six-major superseason began last September, and believe it or not we’re actually just over halfway through this year’s slate of PGA Tour events. The best in the world can’t play every week, after all.

(You can listen to a breakdown of these awards below, on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts!)

And just like Rory McIlroy got a chance to take a deep breath last week, so too do we, the golf-watching public. Now we get a chance to reflect on the fantastic golf we’ve already seen this season. I’ve always found postseason awards fascinating. By contrast, I’ve always found preseason awards bafflingly useless. With that in mind, I’m hoping that the below slate of midseason PGA Tour awards will hit the middle ground, equal parts fascinating and useless, as we crystallize this exact moment in time on Tour.

Without further ado: The Halvsies!

Best single-round performance

APOLOGIES TO: Patrick Cantlay, who shot a blistering 11-under 61 in the final round of the American Express to nearly chase down Si Woo Kim, who shot a measly 64 to win.

WINNER: Jordan Spieth! Nobody has bettered 61 yet this year on Tour and of the eight 61s, I know which one I remember the most. Spieth singlehandedly turned the sports world’s eyes in golf’s direction on Super Bowl Weekend as he put together an absolutely manic round of 10 under at TPC Scottsdale.

A 36-footer for birdie at No. 16 followed by a 30-footer for birdie at No. 17 reminded us that when this guy gets hot from long range, the rest of the field should consider itself on notice. It was electric! Spieth had never made 10 birdies in a PGA Tour round before, and the way he did it — slightly out of control the entire time — was a reminder that this is still Spieth, just some sort of 27-year-old remix. What a joy to witness.

Best fill-in family caddie

APOLOGIES TO: Helen Storey, who nearly got the job done two weeks in a row on the bag of Lee Westwood. The engaged pair seemed to enjoy their runner-up finishes at Bay Hill and the Players as much as any second-place finishers all season. Apologies, too, to Jordan Spieth’s dad. As for Austin Johnson, Tim Mickelson and Kessler Karain? They’re not fill-in enough! Those fellas are full-time.

WINNER: Reagan Cink. Remember the Safeway Open? That was this season! And the guy who won was 47-year-old Stewart Cink, who took down the title with his son on the bag.

Reagan had a big 2020. He graduated from Georgia Tech, he got engaged, he earned a job at Delta and he snagged his first PGA Tour victory. The last part may have been the easiest, since that win came in his first loop of the year.

Initially, Reagan was supposed to move on to his desk job. But then the pair finished T12 at the Sanderson Farms. Then T4 in Bermuda. Team Cink decided he could finish out the year. Things haven’t been quite as easy since then, but they’ve logged two more top-20s including this past weekend at the Honda Classic. That’s enough to get Stewart to No. 22 in the FedEx Cup standings, one spot ahead of Westwood. Good job by all.

Best Sunday golfer 

APOLOGIES TO: All this season’s best closers, including Bryson DeChambeau, who was stellar in his two wins, and Dustin Johnson for the way he slammed the door at Augusta, and even Matt Jones for lapping the field on Sunday. Great closers all. But there’s a statistical anomaly that makes this award much more fun this half-year…

WINNER: Martin Trainer! By most metrics, my former boss (I caddied two PGA Tour events for Trainer) is not having a good season. He’s 209th in scoring average at 73.9. He’s 213th in Strokes Gained: Total. He’s T224 in the FedEx Cup. He just shot 85 at PGA National. But Trainer did make one cut in 13 starts this season, at the Sony Open in Hawaii, and boy did he take advantage.

In that final round, Trainer got hot to the tune of six-under 64. Given that’s the only Sunday round he’s played this season, if you take out any minimum requirements Trainer has by far the best final-round scoring average on Tour.

Now, if we could just get him to the weekend a bit more often…

Best golfer without a win

APOLOGIES TO: Nobody. This isn’t the exact title you want, even if it is indicative of incredible golf ability and a plump bank account. But Tony Finau is the obvious runner-up of the runners-up thus far this season.

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How close has he gotten? Well, Finau finished 4-T2-2 in three consecutive Tour starts this year, including a heartbreaking playoff loss to Max Homa at the Genesis. (And that’s not even including the T2 Finau finished at the Saudi International.)

WINNER: Xander Schauffele! If you consider the stroke play portion of last year’s Tour Championship a victory, which the OWGR does (but the PGA Tour does not), it’s only been six months since Schauffele’s last win. But if you’re more into trophies than world ranking points, he hasn’t won since January 2019. You’ll notice from this list that he’s been darn close since then:

T2, 2019 Masters

T3, 2019 U.S. Open

2, 2019 Tour Championship

2, 2019 WGC-HSBC Champions

T2, 2020 Tournament of Champions

T3, 2020 Charles Schwab Challenge

T2, 2020 Tour Championship (on the leaderboard)

2, 2020 CJ Cup

T2, 2021 Farmers Insurance Open

T2, 2021 Waste Management Phoenix Open

Good grief! That’s some all-world golf. And even though only the final three lines apply to this PGA Tour season, Schauffele’s oh-so-close resume is plenty strong. Add in two more top-five finishes (at the 2020 U.S. Open and the 2021 Tournament of Champions) and Schauffele edges out Finau for the best of the rest.

On Tour, the consolation prizes still tend to pay the bills, though: Schauffele has cleared $3.4 million since September, with other notable runners-up Westwood ($2.95 million) and Finau ($2.81 million) not so far behind.

Biggest question mark

APOLOGIES TO: Jordan Spieth on Sundays, Rory McIlroy with a wedge in his hand, Brooks Koepka’s knee injury and Sungjae Im’s impending military service.

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WINNER: Rickie Fowler’s golf game. A significant dip in results combined with the intense scrutiny that comes with being Rickie Fowler plus the symbolism of missing his first Masters in a decade makes him a shoo-in here. The good news about being a “question,” though, is that we don’t know the answer. There’s plenty of hope for the Man in Orange going forward.

Coolest victory that nobody saw

APOLOGIES TO: Sergio Garcia, who threw an 8-iron dart into the 18th green to seal the Sanderson Farms in October. That shot ruled.

WINNER: Branden Grace at the Puerto Rico Open in a win that was as dramatic as it was emotional. At No. 17, Grace holed a greenside bunker shot for an eagle 2, and he capped off a one-shot victory with birdie at the par-5 18th.

After the win, he spoke of his father Peter, who had died due to COVID-19 just weeks earlier.

“This morning I had a tear in the car when I was talking to my wife,” he said after the round. “It was an emotional day. I thought about him a hell of a lot out there, especially the last tee shot. I was really struggling the last hole, because I knew he was watching over me. I knew he was guiding me.”

There weren’t a lot of eyeballs on the conclusion to the Puerto Rico Open, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a dry one after Grace’s win.

Most underrated golfer

APOLOGIES TO: Cameron Smith, Cameron Smith’s mullet, Corey Conners and Harris English.

WINNER: Joaquin Niemann. This dude is very good at golf. He’s No. 4 in scoring average. He’s No. 7 in birdie average. He’s No. 10 in the FedEx Cup. He’s No. 11 in total strokes gained. He’s logged two runner-up finishes. He hasn’t missed a cut. And he’s only 22 years old!

In other words, when people are talking about the next generation of golfers, they shouldn’t leave Niemann (or Im!) out of that group. Niemann is younger than Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa and less than a year older than Matthew Wolff. Niemann’s still not on everyone’s radar. He will be.

Rookie of the Year

APOLOGIES TO: Rafael Campos. Fun fact: There is actually only one true “rookie” in this year’s PGA Tour class, and it’s Campos. (Why? I don’t quite understand, but we’ll tackle that another time.) Because the Tour didn’t go through its usual promotion and relegation at the end of the 2019-20 season, no rookie class came in. Campos nearly won in front of a home crowd at the Puerto Rico Open, but he’s made just one other cut in 10 total starts.

WINNER: Will Zalatoris. Arguably the biggest lock of this entire column! The PGA Tour’s Rob Bolton has laid out the list of “non-members who haven’t exhausted rookie eligibility,” which is essentially this year’s faux rookie class. Of that subset of players, Zalatoris has accrued the equivalent of 688 FedEx Cup points. The next closest golfer is Justin Suh with 155.1. That’s a big-time gap.

What does this mean in terms of actual results? Essentially that Zalatoris has been a consistency machine. He’s logged 10 top-25s in 13 starts, including a T6 at the U.S. Open. He’s a ballstriking machine, sitting 18th in driving distance and fourth in strokes gained approach. Sure, you won’t see him in this year’s FedEx Cup Playoffs, but for all intents and purposes, Zalatoris has already entered the Tour’s upper echelon.

Most improved

APOLOGIES TO: All of you out there who have been grinding on your golf games since the pandemic first hit. I see you!

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WINNER: Jordan Spieth. The Golden Child’s comeback won’t be complete until he finishes off a victory, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s undeniably on the way back. You can’t fake your way to two consecutive 54-hole leads. You can’t fake your way into contention four weeks in a row. Spieth’s driver is coming around and the rest of his game looks like it’s nearly there already.

Our expectations with Spieth will only continue to increase. Here’s hoping his play will, too!

MVP

APOLOGIES TO: Dustin Johnson. Had the season started a month earlier he’d have run away with the mid-season title. But despite acquiring a new green sport coat, Johnson just doesn’t have the complete resume for Player of the Half-Year honors. But if he picks up a second Masters title in one PGA Tour season, he’ll have a truly one-of-a-kind case to make.

WINNER: Bryson DeChambeau. The simplest case to make is that Bryson is the only Tour pro with multiple wins this season. That’s a solid start. But the numbers really support the idea that he is playing better golf than anybody else by a healthy margin. He’s gaining 2.53 strokes on the field every time he tees it up, with is more than a half-shot better than anyone else (Schauffele is second at 1.91). Here’s a list of various other categories in which DeChambeau leads the Tour:

Driving distance. Club head speed. Strokes gained off the tee. Eagles. Par-3 scoring average. Par-5 scoring average. Overall scoring average. FedEx Cup points.

I’m sure there are others more obscure. And the fact that DeChambeau is actually second to Justin Thomas on the year’s money list is a testament to the $2.7 million first-place check JT took home from Ponte Vedra. But the fact that DeChambeau finished T3 at TPC Sawgrass — a course that tends to neutralize the advantage of big bombers — is nothing but encouraging. At the halfway mark, he’s clearly the PGA Tour’s best golfer this season.

Let the second half begin!