Before the Masters, this PGA Tour year had been notable for two things: the transformation of Scottie Scheffler from standout maiden to standout player, and the ongoing frustrations of those who had combined to keep Scheffler out of the world's top 10 at the end of 2021. Scheffler and Cameron Smith won five of the 14 events from January through the Masters, including all three of the biggest and most important, versus zero wins for the 10 highest-ranked players on the planet at the beginning of the year.
Since Augusta, it's as though those 10 plus Jordan Spieth have been shaken into life, Spieth winning first of all, then Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele in New Orleans, before Jon Rahm won for the first time since last June's US Open. Away from opposite fields, eight of the last nine PGA Tour events have been won by members of the world's top 20, and the stage is set for the PGA Championship in a fortnight. With Tiger Woods' participation all but certain now, perhaps only victory for Rory McIlroy in the Wells Fargo Championship can add to the excitement.
McIlroy has won this three times already, including last year, but all of those were at Quail Hollow, the sort of course he loves. Now, he has to tackle TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm, a formerly maligned course which returned in 2017 and 2018 for two editions of the Quicken Loans National. It's a par-70 with a long front-nine and fairly short back-nine, two meaty par-fives, but not perhaps the scoring opportunities McIlroy really relishes. Given that it's his debut at the course, and that he's been off since the Masters, I doubt there will be many who are rushing to take single-figure prices despite success for Rahm on Sunday.
In many ways, those two tournaments here contrasted starkly: winning scores were seven-under and 21-under, winning margins a play-off and eight shots, the rain of 2017 replaced by fierce humidity in 2018. But in one way they were very similar, because both Kyle Stanley and Francesco Molinari flushed their ways to victory, hitting more greens than anyone, ranking third and fourth respectively in fairways, and not needing to putt well. Molinari happened to, but the stats say he could've been awful and still won. Stanley was close to that, but it didn't stop him.
Potomac certainly seems to me to be a pretty straightforward test of execution, rather than creativity either in thought or shot shape. It demands strong driving, but strong driving might mean hitting a stack of fairways. Brian Gay ranked ninth in strokes-gained off-the-tee in 2018, when fellow short-hitter Ryan Armour finished runner-up. A year earlier, Jason Gore led the fairways stats and benefited plenty from it, just as Stanley did in winning his second PGA Tour title.
If a rock-solid, old-school ball-striker is the requirement then Corey Conners could be the answer, but backing him at 20/1 just isn't an option I can take too seriously. There are signs that the Canadian's troublesome short-game is getting better – if the season ended now, it'd be the first in five in which he gains strokes both around and on the greens – but the world number 31 has found too many different ways to get beaten to be considered at the price.
Instead, I can't resist ABRAHAM ANCER, one of just three members of the world's top 20 in this field along with McIlroy and Tony Finau.
Ancer was very unfortunate to bump into McIlroy putting the lights out at his favourite course in this event last year, doing nothing wrong in second, and went on to gain that overdue breakthrough in the WGC at Southwind. That course is another difficult par 70 with thick rough and a series of straightforward questions, and it always looked a good fit for the Mexican.
So is TPC Potomac, where he drove the ball superbly on his way to fourth place in 2018. Ancer held a share of the lead through 54 holes after an effortless 62 in round three, but had no answer to a rival in Molinari who was at the top of his game and would go on to win the Open Championship later that summer. Still, he demonstrated how comfortable he is here, speaking of his fondness for conditions and love of bentgrass greens in the process.
He returns somewhat off the radar after a disappointing week in Mexico in some respects, but as much as he'd have been desperate to impress, he should know that there were a lot of good signs. In fact, Ancer ranked 13th off the tee, gained strokes with his approach shots and putted as well as he has in a year, only to lose a remarkable 7.3 strokes around the green. As I've written before, that particular statistical category is rarely worth dwelling on and while Ancer's short-game in general is a bit of a worry, those numbers from last week are anomalous. Had he been field average, he'd have finished sixth.
Woodland ranked sixth in strokes-gained tee-to-green in Mexico, a performance based on quality driving, and it extended his run of top-25 finishes to six events if we ignore Augusta and Sawgrass. For the purposes of forecasting this event that seems reasonable to do, because we're in calmer waters and Woodland really doesn't seem to be able to operate at either of those to courses.
Having put him up in the last three of these it has been a little frustrating to see him putt poorly in two of them, and miss the places in clumsy fashion in the other, but I do remain convinced by his overall trajectory and whereas some of these might be putting the finishing touches to their PGA preparations, Woodland is clearly desperate to just go and win again for the first time since the 2019 US Open.
Still, he's been hitting the ball well of late and did so again for 12th at Harbour Town before taking 29th in the Zurich Classic, where he looked to be the dominant player alongside a largely struggling Stephan Jaeger.
Dahmen is one of the more accurate players on the circuit, ranking 21st in fairways, seventh in greens and 21st in ball-striking, all of which translates to some above-average strokes-gained stats. That's a profile which ties him in nicely with both Stanley and Molinari, and when 23rd here in 2019 he was down at 387th in the world rankings.
Now on the fringes of the top 100, he can earn a start in the US PGA with a big week here and having been eighth in strokes-gained approach on that debut four years ago, I'm hopeful that he can prove it a good course for his tidy game which helped him to a first PGA Tour win just over a year ago.
Like Dahmen, DOUG GHIM grew up away from the bermuda greens which dominate the spring portion of the season and his putting struggles continued on paspalum in Mexico, where he ranked 12th from tee-to-green but finished 33rd.
We know now where we stand with Ghim, a quality ball-striker who is driving the ball very well and is no doubt capable of completing his graduation with a win in something like this. The trouble is he remains hamstrung by that putter, and the only time he's been slightly better than average recently he finished sixth in The PLAYERS.
We were on Wu when he was second in Puerto Rico earlier this spring so to go in again at a similar price now we've Rory and co to beat requires belief that he's still potentially underrated, and that's very much my view of a player who graduated from Stanford while playing the final round of the US Open at the end of a fabulous amateur career.
It didn't take Wu long to make his mark as a pro, either, winning the Korn Ferry Tour Championship in 2020, and that came at Victoria National. It's a course where the strong-driving, accurate, former Potomac winner David Lingmerth has finished second and it looks to me like a very similar test.
Like Dahmen, Grace probably needs a big week to get into the PGA Championship, whose qualification criteria is flexible but typically includes the world's top 100 as of this coming Monday. Grace is currently 108th having fallen 40 places since the end of last year, evidence that he's been well below his best.
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