It’s been well documented that Scottie Scheffler’s ball-striking in 2023 has been ridiculously good, while his putting has… not been. This was on full display at last week’s Memorial Tournament, where Scheffler managed to miss a playoff by 1 stroke despite finishing dead last in putting among players that made the weekend.

To understand just how good Scheffler’s ball-striking has been, we looked at the best tee-to-green seasons since 2004 (Tiger’s 2008 season didn’t meet the rounds played cutoff):

1. 2006 Tiger Woods, +3.22 SG:T2G per round (+0.48 SG:Putting per round)
2. 2023 Scottie Scheffler, +3.00, (-0.19)
3. 2007 Tiger Woods, +2.90, (+0.80)
4. 2012 Rory McIlroy, +2.83, (+0.16)
5. 2004 Vijay Singh, +2.69, (-0.09)
6. 2009 Tiger Woods, +2.68, (+0.97)
7. 2006 Adam Scott, +2.44, (-0.07)
8. 2019 Rory McIlroy, +2.45, (+0.49)
9. 2016 Adam Scott, +2.44, (-0.11)
10. 2012 Tiger Woods, +2.42,( 0.44)

It’s pretty rare to find a season-long SG statistic not dominated by mid-2000s Tiger. The fact that Tiger had only one T2G season better than Scheffler’s current campaign is kind of mind-boggling.

Rankings Update

Viktor Hovland finally broke through to win The Memorial last week, by far the biggest victory of his (professional) career. Hovland is now 6th in our rankings and has started to bridge the gap up to the top 5, who have separated themselves from the rest.

Meanwhile, Jordan Spieth notched an uncharacteristically quiet T5 finish and is back inside the top 10.

Top 10 (see all)
Player	DG		OWGR
Scottie Scheffler	1	—	1	—
Jon Rahm	2	—	2	—
Xander Schauffele	3	—	6	1
Rory McIlroy	4	1	3	—
Patrick Cantlay	5	1	4	—
Viktor Hovland	6	1	5	2
Tyrrell Hatton	7	1	16	1
Tony Finau	8	—	12	—
Collin Morikawa	9	2	18	—
Jordan Spieth	10	10	10	1
Notables
Denny McCarthy	21	11	35	20
Tom Kim	44	10	21	—
Ludvig Aberg	92	1	—	—
Billy Horschel	136	28	38	3
Tom Mckibbin	262	90	162	173
Jorge Fernandez-Valdes	328	116	283	—

Billy Horschel—who was defending his title at Muirfield Village—shot a first-round 84 and broke down while speaking to the media afterwards. As recently as last fall Horschel was 18th in our rankings and a captain's pick to the U.S. Presidents Cup team. Eight short months later and he's now ranked 136th.

Tom McKibbin, a 20-year-old phenom from Holywood, Northern Ireland (sound familiar?), won for the first time on the DP World Tour at the Porsche European Open.

Ludvig Aberg makes his professional debut at this week's RBC Canadian Open ranked 92nd in our rankings. For reference, upon making their debuts, Justin Thomas (2013) was 190th, Jordan Spieth (2013) was 146th, Jon Rahm (2016) was 42nd, and the trio of Morikawa/Hovland/Wolff (2019) were 52nd/55th/60th.

Digits Of The Week

8.9 %

The probability that a Canadian wins this week's RBC Canadian Open. The last time a Canadian won their home open was 1954 (Pat Fletcher). Of the 20 Canucks entered, our model gives Corey Conners the best chance at 2.9%.

Player Feature

Denny McCarthy

age 30 yrs, 3 months

dg rank 21st — owgr rank 35th

weeks in dg top 100 201

dg skill +1.3 strokes-gained / round¹

style elite putter, average ball-striker

career wins
PGA Tour: 0
Korn Ferry Tour: 1
Amateur: 2

player comps
2010 Brandt Snedeker (similarity score²: 98.1)
2017 Brian Harman (97.6)
2017 Adam Hadwin (94.4)

Letzig's Insight
Denny McPutts earned his nickname for a reason. McCarthy is currently the best putter in the world according to our metrics, and he also has a long history of putting excellence. Since McCarthy’s rookie PGA Tour season in 2018 he’s gained 301 strokes on the greens (in 425 rounds). Nobody else is close to that mark over the same time period: Beau Hossler is second on the list at 211.

1 Relative to an average PGA Tour field.

2 Similarity scores are uniformly distributed from 0 (least similar) to 100 (most similar). Similarity is based on overall skill and playing style over the previous 3 seasons and a measure of career-long performance. Comps are restricted to players of the same age.

Pavan the Road Back

In 2019 Andrea Pavan was one of the best full-time players on the DP World Tour. He had won twice in a 12-month stretch and was sitting comfortably inside the OWGR top 100. Then he lost the ability to hit a driver.

Andrea Pavan: Strokes-Gained Total

The next two years were rough—at one point his 50-round moving average reached -6.5 strokes-gained per round. Pavan's play improved in 2022 but he still lost his status on the DPWT for 2023. After stringing together a few solid results on the Challenge Tour (Europe's minor tour), Pavan won last week at the D+D Real Czech Challenge.

If Pavan manages to regain his old form, it would be the biggest career turnaround since Brendon Todd came back from the dead in 2019.

Week That Was

Winner	Event	True SG	xWin
V. Hovland	PGA — the Memorial	+3.87	0.639
T. Mckibbin	DPT — European Open	+2.91	0.04
J. F-V	KFT — UNC Health Champ	+2.29	0.004
F. Biondi	AM — NCAA D1	+2.11	0.002
A. Pavan	CHA — Czech Challenge	+1.83	0.001
T. Kanaya	JPN — BMW Japan Champ	+1.66	0.0
S. Ames	SNR — Principal Charity	+0.52	0.0

Explainers: True SG, xWins

Fred Biondi (44th in our amateur rankings) took down a stacked field at the NCAA Division I Men’s Championship. We rated the average player in this field at -2.3 True SG per round, which is about a stroke worse than the typical KFT event. Biondi and his Florida teammates also took down the team championship.

Steven Ames won the Principal Charity Classic to stop Steve Stricker’s win streak at 2 (Stricker finished tied 2nd).