PLAYERS Championship: Power ranking the top 10 at TPC Sawgrass

I was a little hesitant to dive all the way in with Francesco Molinari last week as the 2018 Champion Golfer of the Year was making just his third start of the year. He proved he doesn’t need much to get revved up.

The Italian replicated his bogey-free Sunday to win last year at Carnoustie to come from behind to win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Molinari beat several of his Ryder Cup teammates last week in Orlando thanks to a sterling 64 on Sunday that netted him a two-shot win. Crazy to think he fired 73 the day before.

He hit nearly 75 percent of fairways and gained over a shot-and-a-half per day on the greens.

The 36-year-old has been a known commodity between the European Tour and PGA Tour for a decade. He’s now seemed to develop a killer instinct to turn top-10s into wins.

Molinari’s held a trophy three times in his last 12 starts.

“It’s never easy,” Molinari said Sunday, “but I think what makes the difference is the, is my mental approach is a lot better than what it was three, four years ago and, yeah, it’s just, I practice at home to do this sort of stuff in tournaments and it’s not happened overnight, it’s taken a lot of time, especially for a cut for me that maybe wasn’t naturally enjoying those situations as much and now I’m just more prepared to deal with the whatever comes my way and I think that’s why when I get into contention you see a few bogey-free rounds, yeah.”

It’s been feast or famine for Molinari at the Players Championship. He missed the cut from 2011-2013 before reeling off a T6 in 2014, T7 in 2016 and T6 in 2017 before another MC last year.

His other starts in 2019 resulted in a T27 at the Tournament of Champions and a T17 at the WGC-Mexico.

In 2018-19, Molinari was 10th in strokes gained approach and 17th around the green.