9. Andrew Novak
I have been surprised and impressed by Andrew Novak's play the last couple of weeks, really stepping up and hitting a stretch that we've not seen him reach before in his career, where he can string together a few solid performances in a row and do enough to keep building his FedEx Cup points total. Novak finished T8 in Phoenix last year, one of his best starts of the season, led by his strong approach play that has carried over into 2025. A guy who is hitting the ball extremely well right now, I think this week we could see the apex of this current hot streak from Novak.
8. Sahith Theegala
I really need to see Sahith show some signs of life here at Phoenix, or he's going to start falling out of consideration for these power rankings week in and week out. Luckily, we're coming back to a favorite of Theegala's in Phoenix. In three career starts, he has finished in the top 5 twice, and after putting together a solid week on the greens at Pebble, I'm hopeful that Theegala's irons can click into place for him and lead to a stronger finish. He should probably be behind Novak on these rankings based on current form, but I think that Sahith's baseline talent level is high enough to warrant getting on the rankings.
7. Si Woo Kim
Because of the length that TPC Scottsdale typically plays at (over 7,200 yards), the most important yardage for approach shots/the range the highest amount of approaches will be this week are in the 150-200 yard range (almost 43% of approaches last year came from this range), placing an emphasis on this skill for this back of the napkin predictive analysis. While Si Woo Kim isn't known for being particularly long off the tee, his approach play from these longer ranges puts him in the upper echelon of Tour players, making his game a good fit for the course. Looking at that along with some past relative success at Scottsdale, especially the last few years, I think Si Woo should be shaking his way up the leaderboard.