After a brief jump down to southern Florida for a, to be quite frank, boring Signature Event at Doral, the PGA Tour jumps up north to Charlotte for the Truist Championship, yet another Signature Event at Quail Hollow.
This tournament was played at Philadelphia Cricket Club last season due to the PGA Championship being played at Quail Hollow, but now the tournament is returning to its normal host site. This is the second straight Signature Event, and we're seeing the guys that didn't play last week cycle into the field this week to get warm before the PGA Championship at Aronimink.
When the Signature Events first got announced as a response to LIV, they were set up as events where all of the best players on Tour would tee it up against each other. However, all we've seen is bloated scheduling of these events all around one another, and it ends up leading to less-than-stellar fields in these events that are supposed to be elevated above regular Tour events.
Brian Rolapp and the rest of the Tour need to figure out how to better space the Signature Events throughout the season, or keep dealing with not living up to the promise of these events and annoying fans and players alike.
Moving on from the rant, we must also remember that there is an opposite-field event this week in Myrtle Beach. As is tradition, here are five guys I like for this event: Casey Jarvis, Brooks Koepka, Haotong Li, Pontus Nyholm, Marco Penge.
Back to the Truist, we are rolling here at the rankings with four winners in a row. Let's get going and finish up the hand for number five.
Honorable Mentions: Pierceson Coody, Nicolai Hojgaard, Jake Knapp, Min Woo Lee, Alex Noren
9. Maverick McNealy
Maverick McNealy hasn't been having a banner season by any stretch of the imagination, but he's been plugging right along with consistent decent finishes, with seven top-25s in 11 starts. His irons have betrayed him this season, but in his recent starts, the approach numbers have started to turn around for him.
If the irons continue to improve, then the high finishes should come back for McNealy. Considering he put up good numbers last year at the PGA at Quail Hollow, I like McNealy's chances to find a high finish this week.
8. Adam Scott
If the early results are to be believed from 45-year-old (did we learn nothing from the Honma experiment?), Adam Scott has taken over as the best 45-year-old on the PGA Tour. On top of Rose's abdication of the throne, Scott has been playing some strong golf this year, with five top-25 finishes in his last six starts, including a T4 last week at the Cadillac. Scott's irons have been elite this season, and there's no reason to see why this trend shouldn't continue this week.
7. Ben Griffin
After a very slow few months for Ben Griffin early this season, we may finally have signs of life from Benny Booms. He followed up a respectable T10 at the Zurich with Andrew Novak with a strong solo third at Doral.
The driver has finally started to cooperate with Griffin once again, which was the main thing holding him back through the doldrums of February and March. Now that we're through to the warmer months, Griffin might be heating up at the right time before the rest of the majors.
6. Alex Smalley
Alex Smalley's run of form over the last month has been fantastic with four straight top-25s, including a T2 at Zurich and a T7 at the Cadillac last week. His putting has been the catalyst for his recent form, as he's finally been able to find consistent, solid putting performances to coincide with his strong finishes.
Smalley is kind of performing like Ryan Gerard was performing at the beginning of the season, and I think another trip around Quail Hollow, where he's played well before, can bring another strong result for him.
5. Si Woo Kim
Si Woo Kim's ball striking is far too good to continually be weighed down by his poor putting. The South Korean should be right up there with guys like Matt Fitzpatrick and Cameron Young, but he can't get the ball in the hole. I know I probably shouldn't pick him because of the putting woes, but the ball striking is truly too good to pass on. Maybe he can find a hot week with the putter and truly threaten for the win this week.
4. Xander Schauffele
This may seem a little high for Xander right now, but he is in the middle of a stretch where he has seven consecutive top-25 finishes. His putting numbers haven't quite returned to their 2024 levels, which is really the main thing that is capping Schauffele's ceiling week-to-week at the moment.
Not only has Schauffele performed well this year, but he has done it at a variety of courses, so there's no fluky performances thrown into the streak. He's played well at Quail Hollow before, so let's see if he can summon some good mojo for this week.
3. Matt Fitzpatrick
At this point in the rankings, the top three sort of serve as their own tier within the rankings, and any of them winning this week wouldn't surprise me in the least. Let's start with Matt Fitzpatrick, already a three-time winner on Tour this year.
The worst finish in his last five starts was a T18 at The Masters, but besides that, he's been right at the top of the leaderboards. The game is complete once again for Fitzpatrick, and he's gotten back to his major-winning form from a few years ago. I don't think he'll be done anytime soon.
2. Rory McIlroy
This is our first look at Rory McIlroy since his Masters triumph just about a month ago, and in his time away two new dominant forces have appeared in men's professional golf (Nelly Korda would run laps around these guys). The reason Rory sits right in the middle of Fitz and our number one player is because we're at Quail Hollow this week.
As I mentioned in the PGA Championship rankings last year, Rory loves Quail Hollow. I wouldn't be surprised to see McIlroy strutting all over Quail Hollow this weekend and trying to reassert himself over the new dominators.
1. Cameron Young
This pick shouldn't be a surprise at all, as Cameron Young is finally reaching the heights we expected of him when he came out so hot in 2022. This year of golf that he has had since winning a playoff just to qualify for last year's U.S. Open has been nothing short of spectacular, and he's not showing any signs of slowing down.
His driving prowess puts him in such good positions so consistently that he doesn't have to do much to score well on any given round, and I think much like Doral, the length that Quail Hollow plays at should fit Young's eye perfectly. The year of Cameron Young is fully upon us, and at this rate, it's just a matter of what he will do in the majors.
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