DG Rankings › Trends › Skill-Weighted Age
Ranking Trends
The DG Rankings can also be used to shed light on broader trends in professional golf. Here are a few that we regularly check in on. If you have an idea for another plot or trend for this section, please reach out.
Skill-Weighted Age of Top Players
To assess how the age of professional golf has evolved over time, we calculated the skill-weighted average age of all players with a DG Index above zero at the end of each month since 1983. Because an index of zero represents our baseline player (roughly an average PGA Tour player), this can be thought of as the average age of players gaining strokes over our baseline, with players who gain more strokes receiving more weight. The bars above and below the plot represent the 40 most influential players on the average since 1983 (players are limited to one 5-year stretch as a young and old player).
Players with most upward (older) influence on the index
Age
Avg Skill
Avg Infl.
Players with most downward (younger) influence on the index
Who is influencing skill-weighted age most today?
As of Nov 2026, the skill-weighted age of professional golf is 31.65. This is 0.66 years older than the minimum reached in Dec 2022, and 4.25 years younger than the maximum reached in May 1996. We measure a player's influence on this average as the difference between the skill-weighted age with and without their value included. Here are the 20 players with the most influence on the current average.
# Player Age DG Rank DG Index InfluenceInfl.
1.
 AdamA. Scott Adam  Scott
46
19
0.19
2.
 JacksonJ. Koivun Jackson  Koivun
21
33
0.12
3.
 BladesB. Brown Blades  Brown
19
44
0.11
4.
 AlexA. Noren Alex  Noren
44
42
0.11
5.
 ShaneS. Lowry Shane  Lowry
39
15
0.10
6.
 JustinJ. Rose Justin  Rose
46
62
0.10
7.
 TomT. Kim Tom  Kim
24
23
0.10
8.
 BenB. James Ben  James
23
32
0.10
9.
 MichaelM. Brennan Michael  Brennan
24
25
0.10
10.
 RoryR. McIlroy Rory  McIlroy
37
4
0.10
11.
 JacobJ. Bridgeman Jacob  Bridgeman
26
12
0.09
12.
 RussellR. Henley Russell  Henley
37
7
0.09
13.
 LudvigL. Aberg Ludvig  Aberg
27
10
0.08
14.
 ChrisC. Gotterup Chris  Gotterup
27
11
0.08
15.
 KeeganK. Bradley Keegan  Bradley
40
49
0.07
16.
 EugenioE. Chacarra Eugenio  Chacarra
26
27
0.07
17.
 RyanR. Gerard Ryan  Gerard
27
18
0.06
18.
 GaryG. Woodland Gary  Woodland
42
65
0.06
19.
 BrianB. Harman Brian  Harman
39
47
0.06
20.
 AkshayA. Bhatia Akshay  Bhatia
24
51
0.06
Notes
Will CNov 7, 2026

In recent newsletters, we've brought up how the steady flow of young superstars breaking into pro golf since 2010 has turned into more of a trickle. But something that struck me when we first looked at this "skill-weighted age" measure is that it hasn't bounced back up much in recent years. It bottomed out at 31.0 in 2022 and is now (at the time of this comment) 31.6.

It turns out that the young (under 25) cohort is not the only one struggling of late. The 40+ cohort has quieted down since Stricker, Furyk, Phil, and Stenson finally saw their play decline. Outside of Adam Scott, the older cohort is being held up by relatively surprising names in Alex Noren, Shane Lowry, Justin Rose, and Russell Henley. As Rory gets older, and Xander, Spieth, JT, Hideki, Rahm, and Scottie approach their mid-30s, we should start to see skill-weighted age move back up. How high it gets will depend on how good Koivun, Ben James, Blades Brown, Miles Russell, and co. turn out to be.

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Will CNov 7, 2026

In recent newsletters, we've brought up how the steady flow of young superstars breaking into pro golf since 2010 has turned into more of a trickle. But something that struck me when we first looked at this "skill-weighted age" measure is that it hasn't bounced back up much in recent years. It bottomed out at 31.0 in 2022 and is now (at the time of this comment) 31.6.

It turns out that the young (under 25) cohort is not the only one struggling of late. The 40+ cohort has quieted down since Stricker, Furyk, Phil, and Stenson finally saw their play decline. Outside of Adam Scott, the older cohort is being held up by relatively surprising names in Alex Noren, Shane Lowry, Justin Rose, and Russell Henley. As Rory gets older, and Xander, Spieth, JT, Hideki, Rahm, and Scottie approach their mid-30s, we should start to see skill-weighted age move back up. How high it gets will depend on how good Koivun, Ben James, Blades Brown, Miles Russell, and co. turn out to be.

See all notes ›