Every year, there is a bouquet of relatively new golfers who are blooming all over the fairways at THE PLAYERS. Some are new to the PGA Tour as well. Some may have been in THE PLAYERS once, even twice or three times, but so far, they haven’t won it. In fact, most of them haven’t won a lot as professionals. That’s why it’s good to keep an eye on them, just as we did last season with Ludvig Åberg (pronounced Oh-berg, presumably a cousin of Ice-berg) who won in Europe right after college, and then won on the PGA Tour at the last event in the fall of 2023.
You never know when one of these phenoms will jump up and surprise everybody. And Åberg is definitely on this list. Keep your eye on him. Especially now that he lives in Ponte Vedra!
At the top of new guys to watch is Thomas Detry (said Dee-Tree, the Belgian who was recruited for the University of Illinois golf team — think Steve Stricker) and just won his first PGA Tour event at the raucous WM Phoenix Open in Scottsdale. Detry has been on the PGA Tour for two years, having become a member in 2023. Before that, he played the DP World Tour.
Detry followed fellow Belgian Thomas Pieters, who won the individual Big 10 conference title in 2013, played his way to the PGA Tour and then went back to Europe and then moved to LIV golf.
In Scottsdale, Detry showed he could stand up to the crowds, to the pressure of having the lead and keeping it through several days of a tournament. He’s definitely a guy to put on your possibles list, although he was 62nd last year. Still, he has to have some confidence after playing that 16th hole at TPC Scottsdale where they yell and scream and sing and whatnot. Especially the whatnot.
After winning, Detry said, “I love it here. It's great. The PGA Tour is great.”
Yes, Thomas. We agree, but we live here.
Denmark also has two entries in the up-and-coming golfers category, and they are the Hojgaard twins, Rasmus and Nicholai. Supposedly everyone was focused on Rasmus, because he has five victories on the DP World Tour, including last year’s Irish Open where he beat Rory McIlroy by a stroke. But then Nicholai was so good that he was picked for the 2023 European Ryder Cup team. He also won the DP World Tour Championship in 2023.
Nicolai played 14 events on the PGA Tour in 2022-23 and 18 events as a regular member of the Tour last year. Either one of them is capable of a big victory. Don’t bet against them in the Zurich team event, either!
Their last name is pronounced Hoy-Gaar. Silent d, like sometimes happens in French. The French also don’t pronounce many r’s, a lot of h’s and numerous other letters that fell out of favor. Why have the letter if you’re not going to use it? Aaaargh!! (Sort of silent h.)
The United States has some newbies, too. Will Chandler, a Georgia native and UGA golf product, showed a lot of promise at the WM Phoenix Open.
Chandler finished T6 there, and he’ll have some work to get into THE PLAYERS. However, if he continues to play as well as he did at the WM Open, he could make it.
Another born-in-Georgia guy whose family turned tail and went to Auburn, Alabama, then let him boomerang back to UGA for college is Davis Thompson. He lives at Sea Island with that entire crew that plays out of what is the prettiest practice range in the country. It has a view of the water like nobody can believe. Anyone else would dig that up and turn it into super-expensive housing. (For a couple of years, it was also a good place to watch the cargo ship that sank with a gazillion cars on board.)
Last summer, Thompson won the 2024 John Deere, which means he’s not only in THE PLAYERS, but he’s also in the Masters and the PGA. He shot 28-under-par at the John Deere, which is the lowest 72-hole score ever in the tournament's history, and it’s been going on for quite a while. (One question: Does he get one of those cute tractor tee markers to take home?)
Now, all the top golfers in the FedEx Cup standings from last season will be here. And that includes Maverick McNealy, who won Davis Love III’s event at Sea Island, the RBC Classic. McNealy went to Stanford, where he shot a 61 in the last round of the Pac-12 Conference Championship tournament, which tied the college record, which is also shared with Tiger Woods and Cameron Wilson.
Robert Macintyre, the Scot who won his country’s open last summer, the Genesis Scottish Open, has joined the PGA Tour, and he’s both fun to watch and fun to listen to, if you like Scottish accents. Plus, he can really play. He’s a lefty, so be sure to stand on the left side of the holes, the better to see his swing.
Austin Eckroat, who won twice in 2024, at the Cognizant (formerly Honda) and a fall event, the World Wide Technology Championship at El Cardonal at Diamante Los Cabos, in Baja California, Mexico, has been kind of flying under the radar, as they say. However, he was in the top 50 in 2024, and that gets him into every important event all year. So, he’s a bigger deal than some people might think. That’s just a sample of players to watch.
Just so you’ll know who’s in and who’s out, the field is 144 players made up from:
1. Winners of PGA Tour events since last PLAYERS
2. Top 125 from previous season's FedEx Cup points list
3. Top 125
4. Major champions from the past five years
5. PLAYERS Championship winners from the past five years
6. The Tour Championship winners from the past three years
7. Memorial Tournament, Arnold Palmer Invitational and Genesis Invitational winners from the past three years
8. Top 50 from the Official World Golf Ranking
9. Senior PLAYERS Championship champion from prior year
10. Korn Ferry Tour money leader from 2024
11. Money leader during the Korn Ferry Tour Finals, if not the regular-season money leader
12. Top 10 current year FedEx Cup points leaders
13. Remaining positions and alternates filled from the current season FedEx Cup standings until they get to 144
