PLAYERS Championship: Top 10 power rankings at TPC Sawgrass

The sign a golfer is on fire when a T-61 finish is his worst in 11 months. Webb Simpson didn’t have his ‘A’ game in his last start a few weeks ago at the WGC-Mexico.

I’m not too concerned. He previously had five top-10s in a row and nine straight top-25s. The man has been a machine over the past couple of years; he just wasn’t winning much.

Simpson won last month at the Phoenix Open. That was his first victory since he ran away at the 2018 Players Championship.

He made for somewhat of a surprise winner. It was his first PGA Tour title since 2013. He never finished better than T-15 in eight previous starts at the Players.

Yet, somehow, Simpson caught fire to post 66-63-68-73 to win by four. He didn’t even need to step on the gas on Sunday and still shot the best 72-hole score since Fred Couples finished at 18-under in 1996.

Simpson’s not a long hitter. He is tactical with his irons and has refound his putting stroke in recent years after the anchored putter ban was enacted in 2016.

"“…approach shots, they mean everything,” Simpson said in 2019 in a transcript from ASAP Sports. “These greens are undulating, there’s trouble, there’s so much to it, I mean there’s a couple holes out there if you drive it in the rough, we’re thinking about laying up and not going for the green. And so you look at a guy like Sergio who is a shot maker, great iron player, has been forever, he’s won here and contended a number of — I think he has two or three other seconds. So I definitely think — I’m confident with my iron play and that’s pretty much everything here.”"

Simpson ranks seventh on Tour in strokes gained approach (.968), 13th in SG putting (.72) and 31st in SG around the green (.323). Plus, he’s good out of the rough (34th in proximity, 40’1”) if things go awry off the tee.

Simpson can also rely a little bit more this week on longtime caddie, Paul Tesori, who’s a Jacksonville native.