When some people talk, I listen. So, when during a CBS media call, Jim Nantz picked Chris Gotterup as his favorite in the middleweight division and Scottie Scheffler in the heavyweight division to win the PGA Championship a couple of months back, my Spidey Senses tingled. Nantz does not pull names out of the blue, especially when it comes to golf.
Scheffler was a no-brainer pick. But Gotterup was a surprise. The rest of the CBS crew ribbed him because they said he had also picked Gotterup as a dark horse for The Masters. Hmmmm.
Jim Nantz has seen a lot of golfers come and go. So have I, but Nantz actually plays golf well, something I’ve never done. (I’ve played, but we’ll skip the modifiers.)
If Nantz picked Gotterup twice, he knows something the rest of us don’t. There’s some secret sauce that has been shared, special insight that trickled down, something written in code on a napkin. He knows somebody who knows somebody. He doesn’t just make stuff up. He’s too serious a person for that. I take what he says to heart. Kind of the Walter Cronkite of golf.
If you are under the age of 60, you may have to look up Cronkite, who was a big-deal CBS News anchorman back when there were three networks, and you could believe what people said on TV.
Bottom line: If Nantz likes Gotterup that much, Gotterup’s got something we don’t know about…yet.
So, this week, Gotterup is returning to the location of his second PGA Tour title, the Genesis Scottish Open at The Renaissance Club in North Berwick, Scotland. The town is pronounced Berrick. Or, for current or former military types, like the singular of barracks.
So far, Gotterup has shown us a lot. He has five victories in a little over two years. His first title came at ONEflight Myrtle Beach, an opposite field event to the Truist in 2024.
His second victory was big-boy stuff at last year's Scottish Open, where he tackled Rory McIlroy and others on both the PGA Tour and European Tour.
This year, 2026, he’s already accumulated three wins. First there was the Sony Open, which was the season opener since Kapalua is still embroiled in local politics and water problems. Then he added the WM Phoenix Open in Scottsdale, where he survived the boisterous 16th hole and the rest that goes with it.
And last Sunday, he added the John Deere Classic, a tournament that has been played since 1971 when it was won by none other than Deane Beman, the second PGA Tour commissioner. Beman even repeated in 1972, beating Tom Watson.
Gotterup didn’t just waltz in to win it either. He shot a final-round 62 and, after he took the lead, had people chasing him. Meanwhile, the sun was baking the brains of all golfers in Midwest heat and humidity. Sure, it’s not as bad as Florida humidity, but since I grew up in Illinois, I can vouch for its brutality.
Five trophies in just over two years is attention-getting. It’s a lot of victory circles for a new tour pro not named Tiger Woods. Woods, one of the two against which all golfers will be measured, won six tournaments in his first calendar year as a pro, but two in the fall of 1996.
The John Deere is not the only time Gotterup’s gone low in the final round either. In the first tournament he won, the ONEflight Myrtle Beach, he shot a 67 and beat Alistair Docherty and Davis Thompson by six shots. Great margin. Probably didn’t need to go lower.
In his second career title, the Genesis Scottish Open, he tossed up a 66 to beat McIlroy and Marco Penge by two shots.
This season he’s already carved out three victories. The first came at the Sony Open, where his final-round 64 was two strokes better than Ryan Gerard.
Then, at the WM Phoenix Open, he had another 64 to tie Hideki Matsuyama, ultimately winning in a playoff.
And last Sunday, at TPC Deere Run, Gotterup outscored the field by a single shot. The tournament nearly went to a playoff, but nerves must have gotten the better of a few of his competitors. Gotterup finished a couple of groups before they did and had to wait it out.
But, as we saw, sometimes when others have to stare at a number that’s equal to their score, they tighten up and can’t go one lower. Often they make mistakes and go one or more higher. And that’s exactly what happened to the rest of the contenders, handing Gotterup his third victory this year and his fifth overall.
As Gotterup arrives in Scotland, he's no doubt ready to test his skills against the U.S. players who entered and the rest of the field, which comes from all over the globe. The question will become: Is he the next big star of the PGA Tour? It’s starting to look like it. As my editor pointed out to me earlier this week, no player in the last 40 years has three wins in the same PGA Tour season with final-round scores of 64 or better.
So, I don’t know about you, but I’m paying attention to Jim Nantz’s predictions from earlier this season. Gotterup has a good chance to win any tournament he enters. He hits it hard. Finds it. Hits it hard again. Makes putts. Keeps going. He plays with dogged determination. A bulldog with a golf club.
Maybe he wins the Scottish Open again. Maybe he wins the week after. One way or another, the John Deere is not his last victory.
Gotterup definitely plays like he’s headed for a victory every time he tees it up. We just don’t know what yet. Take it from Jim Nantz (and me), Gotterup has “something.” It will take real courage to play against him.
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