Where we left off: Who was best positioned to have a monster season?
Rory McIlroy has started his 2020 season even better than his 2019 season, in which he won Player of the Year.
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The PGA Tour returns June 11 after a nearly three-month shutdown due to the spread of the coronavirus. It was quite the break, but golf is back long before other sports are returning. So, what was life like on Tour before the shutdown? Let this series remind you where we left off.
Which players looked primed to be Player of the Year?
Look no further than last year’s POY, Rory McIlroy. The 31-year-old was cruising along to top finishes just like he did in 2019. Recall how McIlroy entered the 2019 Masters: with seven top-10 finishes in a row.
Well, McIlroy has finished in the top 5 in every PGA Tour event in the 2019-2020 season. That’s seven top-5s dating back to the Zozo Championship, including his win at the WGC-HSBC Champions. McIlroy is the undisputed No. 1 player in the world even if he hasn’t won a major in the last five years.
His closest competition is Justin Thomas. Thomas very quietly has two victories this season, starting way back in October at the CJ Cup in Korea. He also beat Patrick Reed in a very limited-field event at the Tournament of Champions in Hawaii. Despite a couple of missed cuts, Thomas still has five top-10 finishes elsewhere, so his case for POY is really just as good as McIlroy’s.
And to be fair to the rest of the field vying for POY honors, Jon Rahm was quietly making a great case for himself, too. Rahm began his 2020 with a flurry of top 10s, he just hadn’t claimed a victory on the PGA Tour yet. With a condensed schedule, he’ll have to bag a couple wins to re-enter the chase.
Luckily for those three guys, and a number of others who have won (Patrick Reed, Adam Scott, Marc Leishman) there is still one major scheduled for the 2020 PGA Tour season. Whoever raises the trophy at TPC Harding Park in August will likely have the best resume for Player of the Year.
But perhaps we get an unexpected champion? We very well could see a PGA Tour Player of the Year without a major victory on his resume. Now that would be interesting.
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