The Tour Championship is behind us and, aside from the Presidents Cup and a few back-to-back appearances in lower-level events, golf’s top stars are calling it quits until 2025.
Like last year, the revamped FedEx Cup season begins in January instead of the fall. While Korn Ferry Tour players, workers and others battle for status on the big tour, the top guys take a break until the new year.
This makes it a great time to look back this year to see where some of the game’s best are currently at. I know LIV isn’t done for the year, but I think we have more than enough results to share some grades.
Here’s a ranking of the 15-star players (on the PGA or LIV Tour) and how they fared in 2024. If I didn’t feel they qualified for “star status,” I left them off the list.
1. Scottie Scheffler (A+)
The only drawback for Scheffler is that he only achieved a great victory.
Scheffler won $62 million on the course this year, shattering the season record (per round, he won more than $800,000!). That’s more than half the money Tiger Woods earned on his course whole career.
Texas had seven Tour wins plus an Olympic gold medal. While his Masters win is more meaningful to his legacy, we will remember his charges on Sunday at the Players Championship and the Olympics.
2. Xander Schauffele (A+)
You rarely see two A+ grades in one season, but you should deliver two this year.
Schauffele became the first player since Brooks Koepka to win two championships in the same season. He was also the first player since Jordan Spieth to have his first two major wins in the same year.
Schauffele’s reputation has changed rapidly. He is definitely the number 2 player in the world without any worries.
3. Bryson DeChambeau (A)
Based on the first three companies alone, DeChambeau deserves an A.
He got into the mix at the Masters, came up one shot shy of the PGA Championship and finally broke through to the US Open.
His LIV results were just OK for a player of his caliber, but a lot is forgiven if he wins a major. It is also worth mentioning how much his stock rose outside of the golf tournament.
4. Rory McIlroy (A-)
It’s a high standard to set, but I think McIlroy will be disappointed in his season.
He won three times — including a victory over Schauffele in the Wells Fargo Championship — and had six other top-five finishes. The skill and drive is still there.
But we’ll mostly remember his mental collapse late in the US Open and then throwing away an Olympic medal with a tragic blunder on the 15th hole of the final round.
5. Hideki Matsuyama (A-)
Well, this one blew us away.
Matsuyama won two major events with the Genesis Invitational and FedEx St. Jude Championship to go along with a bronze medal at the Olympics.
Five more top-10 finishes cemented Matsuyama’s place as one of the best players in the world, although he will need to perform better at the majors to be considered in the same class as those above him. in this list.
6. Collin Morikawa (B)
In a strange statistical quirk, Morikawa played slightly better golf in 2024 than he did earlier in his career, when he won two events – but this time, he didn’t win once.
Morikawa recorded seven top-five finishes and missed just one cut all year. He was very strong in majors, never finishing worse than T16.
Hyper-consistent and clearly among the best players in the world, Morikawa should pick up some wins in 2025.
7. Tommy Fleetwood (B)
Consistently a top-20 player in the world for most of the last decade, Fleetwood had a fine 2024 highlighted by a win at the Dubai Invitational, a silver medal at the Olympics and a T3 at the Masters.
Fleetwood is quietly up to No. 8 in the Data Golf rankings, representing arguably the best statistical game of his career outside of 2018.
He has yet to win in the US so this is the next step for him.
8. Jon Rahm (B-)
I’ll give Rahm one easy break here.
Although his senior season was a nightmare for a player of his caliberRahm has started to revive his game with a win at LIV and a strong showing at the Olympics where he blew a lead at the end. He is still the No. 3 player in the world according to Data Golf.
I think Rahm needed some time to emotionally adjust to LIV. We’ll see a better game from him in the big leagues next year.
9. Patrick Cantlay (B-)
Cantlay, who has won eight times on Tour, has not achieved a victory since August 2022.
He had a handful of strong tournaments this year, including a T3 at the US Open. Entering major competition is a step forward for Cantlay, a player who has had a dismal record in the majors throughout his career.
For that reason, I’ll leave it at a B- rather than a C+.
10. Cameron Smith (C+)
Lost in all the LIV-Tour nonsense is how Smith went from 2022 Open champion to an afterthought.
While he had three runner-up finishes at the LIV and a T6 at the Masters, Smith struggled in the other three championships and has fallen out of the focus of golf fans.
He should be in the prime of his career right now. Smith needs a better major league record than he’s put up the last two seasons combined.
11. Brooks Koepka (C+)
Yes, Koepka won twice at LIV. That still isn’t enough to justify his terrible major record this year.
Aside from 2022 when he was clearly injured, Koepka has never had a worse major season than this one. He never included either, his best finish being a T26.
It’s hard to give him anything more than a C for that performance.
12. Justin Thomas (C)
I am very optimistic that Thomas will take things in the right direction.
It’s worrying that he hasn’t won since the 2022 PGA Championship, and his inability to get into serious competition all year has been hard to watch.
However, I am encouraged that he fought in the tournament championship. His iron game appears to be getting closer to previous levels, as he improved from 39th to 11th in Approach Strokes Gained.
Thomas feels a lot like Clemson football at this point — respectable, but a far cry from the pace set a few years ago.
13. Max Homa (C-)
It was quite a step back for Homa, a player who came into the year with six Tour wins and a ton of momentum.
His highlight came at the Masters when he finished T3, but Homa had one approximate summer and didn’t even make it to the tournament championship. He is ranked No. 86 on Data Golf.
It’s hard to say how worrisome this is long-term, but golf is much better when he’s pretending.
14. Viktor Hovland (C-)
Despite winning the FedEx Cup last year, Hovland took a shift that led to some short-term bruising.
He had some occasional moments where everything clicked — he almost won the PGA Championship and played well in Memphis — but those were his only top-10 finishes of his season.
Hovland is too talented to fall forever. I’d be surprised if he doesn’t come back in better shape next year.
15. Jordan Spieth (D+)
One of our best MGS articles of the year is this story I wrote about how Jordan Spieth is a shell of the player he was earlier in his career.
Things only got worse after that article. Spieth went to 19 tournaments with just one top-10 finish (a T10 at the Valero Texas Open).
He just underwent surgery on his wrist, an injury that has proved troublesome in recent years. Hopefully he comes back healthy next year because Spieth is deep in JAG (Just Another Guy) territory.
Do you agree with these grades? Let me know below in the comments.
Main photo caption: Justin Thomas made the Tour Championship but hasn’t won since May 2022. (GETTY IMAGES/Kevin C. Cox)
Post Season Grades: Scheffler Dominates, Spieth Implodes and Thomas Searches appeared first on MyGolfSpy.
