2023 Charles Schwab Challenge: Top 10 Power Rankings
There are a handful of PGA Tour players yo-yoing from the Dallas-Fort Worth area for the AT&T Byron Nelson a couple weeks ago to last week’s PGA Championship in New York and now back to the DFW for the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial.
Let’s hope they aren’t getting dizzy.
This tournament was established in 1946 and has been held annually in May at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas.
It’s an invitational tournament featuring a 120-player field.
They’ll be taking on a 7,209-yard, par-70 layout designed by Perry Maxwell.
Colonial is known as Hogan’s Alley for Ben Hogan’s record five wins here.
It’s defined by its narrow fairways and small greens. Driver is not necessarily the best play on several holes, especially for the big hitters. With that said, players are starting to find corners to cut on a few holes.
The rough length and green speeds are usually average by PGA Tour standards.
Bermuda grass covers tee boxes, fairways, and rough. Greens are bentgrass.
If the wind is up, this can be a tough test. If not, modern equipment and depth of fields are allowing players to take it pretty low here.
The Horrible Horseshoe stretch of holes on 3-5 can be a problem, but players have chances to gain ground back as the round goes on.
Weather for the week forecasts to be benign with temperatures in the 60s-80s, light winds and little to no rain.
Ten of the top 25 players from the Official World Golf Ranking are present this week.
Speaking of 10, let’s get into the top 10 power rankings:
Sungjae Im continues to have one of the busiest, most far-scoping schedules among the world’s top golfers.
It’s hard to blame the South Korean star for going to play on his home tour. That’s what he did a couple weeks ago when Im won the Woori Financial Group Championship.
However, the timing was a little peculiar. Im had to jet west to New York for last week’s PGA Championship. Big trips like that are nothing new, but it’s easy to speculate if fatigue played a part in his missed cut at Oak Hill.
It was his third start in as many weeks, with a T-8th coming at the Wells Fargo Championship prior to his trip to South Korea.
It might be foolish to tee it up yet again this week at the Charles Schwab Challenge, but I think having the weekend off will be enough for the iron man to recharge his batteries.
Im is coming to Colonial for the fourth time. He’s gotten better here each trip, going from a missed cut by two shots in 2019 to an MC by one in 2021.
Im was two shots on the right side of the cut line last year and rose on the weekend for T-15th (70-70-67-70).
Despite a cold putting week, Im still cashed a nice paycheck thanks to ranking second in the field in strokes gained tee-to-green.
On the season, the 25-year-old ranks 14th in that stat per round (1.166). He’s positive in every SG category, including putting. If Im can finish middle of the pack on the greens, his elite ball striking should be enough to vault him into contention.
Prior to the PGA Championship, Im was on a streak of 11 straight made cuts worldwide.