This article is part of our Golf Barometer series.
What do Jordan Spieth, Henrik Stenson, and Brooks Koepka all have in common? Well, aside from each being ranked in the top 20 of the Official World Golf Ranking, they were all winners in their own way this past weekend: Spieth took home the title at the Australian Open, Stenson played well enough in the final European Tour event of the season to secure victory in the Race to Dubai, and Koepka brought home a win from Japan. Most golfers will break for the next few weeks, but the latest performances from these top golfers provide plenty of reason to be excited for 2017. We will take a closer look at Koepka, and a few other golfers, below.
VALUE RISING
Brooks Koepka
Koepka won his seventh professional title this past week on the Japan Golf Tour, outlasting a late surge from Yuta Ikeda with clutch birdies on the final two holes to claim victory by one stroke. After three rounds it appeared Koepka would easily walk away with the title, as he entered Sunday's final round with a five-shot lead. Ikeda had other plans, but Koepka's firepower was just too much to handle in the end. The 26-year-old was coming off a runner-up finish at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in his previous event, and thanks to his last two results, he has moved up to a career-best No. 17 in the OWGR. Koepka's ability to stripe the ball off the tee continues to be his strong suit, and
What do Jordan Spieth, Henrik Stenson, and Brooks Koepka all have in common? Well, aside from each being ranked in the top 20 of the Official World Golf Ranking, they were all winners in their own way this past weekend: Spieth took home the title at the Australian Open, Stenson played well enough in the final European Tour event of the season to secure victory in the Race to Dubai, and Koepka brought home a win from Japan. Most golfers will break for the next few weeks, but the latest performances from these top golfers provide plenty of reason to be excited for 2017. We will take a closer look at Koepka, and a few other golfers, below.
VALUE RISING
Brooks Koepka
Koepka won his seventh professional title this past week on the Japan Golf Tour, outlasting a late surge from Yuta Ikeda with clutch birdies on the final two holes to claim victory by one stroke. After three rounds it appeared Koepka would easily walk away with the title, as he entered Sunday's final round with a five-shot lead. Ikeda had other plans, but Koepka's firepower was just too much to handle in the end. The 26-year-old was coming off a runner-up finish at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in his previous event, and thanks to his last two results, he has moved up to a career-best No. 17 in the OWGR. Koepka's ability to stripe the ball off the tee continues to be his strong suit, and he figures to contend for his first major championship in 2017 at this rate. He will likely next return to PGA Tour action sometime in January.
Alex Noren
Noren has quietly snuck into the top 10 of the OWGR thanks to three top-25 finishes -- including a win at the Nedbank Golf Challenge -- to round out the European Tour season, a surge that also resulted in a third-place finish in the Race to Dubai. The 34-year-old has over a decade of professional golf experience and continues to impress on the international stage. His fantasy value is limited in leagues that focus strictly on PGA Tour events given the fact that he normally only plays in the United States for majors or World Golf Championship events, but the Swede currently projects to be an under-the-radar pick for the 2017 majors held on American soil. Noren's driving distance and accuracy are not his key weapons by any means, but he was able to hit 73 percent of his greens in regulation throughout the 2016 European Tour season while also 1.75 putts per GIR. He will next tee it up alongside David Lingmerth as Sweden's representatives in this week's World Cup of Golf.
Matthew Fitzpatrick
Another young European stud makes the list, as Fitzpatrick won the European Tour's 2016 season finale this past week at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai. At just 22 years old the Englishman has already racked up three wins on the European Tour, and he finished sixth in this year's Race to Dubai in just his third season as a professional. Fitzpatrick has launched himself into the top 30 of the OWGR, and he figures to be another under-the-radar option to win his first career major in 2017. Standing just 5-foot-9, Fitzpatrick's distance off the tee won't leave anyone in awe, but his accuracy and ability to hit greens in regulation are tools he can rely on from week to week.
Anirban Lahiri
After three events in the latest PGA Tour season, Lahiri resides in the No. 19 spot in the FedExCup Standings, with three consecutive top-30 finishes to begin his campaign. Tying for third at the CIMB Classic in late October got the 76th-ranked player in the world off to a hot start, and he was able to keep the momentum rolling as he finished T28 and T13 at the OHL Classic and RSM Classic, respectively. He notched just two top-25 performances throughout the 2015-16 season but has already tied that mark thanks to a stroke average of 69.3 over his last 12 competitive rounds. Expectations may need to be tempered moving forward as the strength of competition increases, but he will be a name to remember when PGA Tour action resumes in January.
VALUE FALLING
Tyrone Van Aswegen
Despite appearing in five events during the early portion of the 2016-17 PGA Tour season and finishing in seventh place at the CIMB Classic in October, Van Aswegen is not even inside the top 55 of the FedExCup Standings, having missed three of five cuts. Through 14 tournament rounds this season he has broken 70 just six times, with half of those coming in the CIMB Classic. The 34-year-old South African is in his fourth year on Tour, and may be due to come back to Earth a bit after the best season of his career, one in which he surpassed the $1 million mark in earnings for the first time.
Ryan Brehm
The 30-year-old rookie and Michigan State product posted consecutive top-30 finishes in his first two starts earlier this season, but he has since struggled to maintain that form. Brehm was able to make the cut at the OHL Classic earlier in November, but fell to a T66 result as he failed to break 70 during his final two rounds. He followed that performance with a missed cut at last week's RSM Classic, posting scores of 70-70 to fall below the cut line by three strokes. Brehm has been able to bomb the ball off the tee and is averaging slightly less than 29 putts per round, but he will need to work on accuracy moving forward in order to compete against the stronger competition that awaits.
Trey Mullinax
Similarly to the aforementioned Brehm, Mullinax is also a long-hitting rookie who was making cuts at the beginning of this season, but has since battled accuracy issues and missed cuts at both the OHL Classic and RSM Classic. Mullinax starred on his home turf as a collegiate golfer at powerhouse University of Alabama, and he entered the season with high hopes of making a splash and battling to become Rookie of the Year. So far he has experienced a learning curve and is hitting just 48 percent of his fairways in regulation, but he is a prime bounceback candidate given his distance, ball-striking ability, and stellar skill with the putter.
INJURY UPDATE
Si Woo Kim (back)
Kim already has a top-10 performance and a withdrawal on his ledger in what has been an up-and-down beginning to his 2016-17 campaign. The T10 finish came in October at the CIMB Classic, just weeks before he was forced to withdraw from the OHL Classic during his first round due to a minor back injury. Kim was able to return to tournament action just one week later, but he missed the cut at the RSM Classic and the back issue still may have been bothersome. By the time the Hyundai Tournament of Champions rolls around for Kim in early January, his back injury figures to be a thing of the past.
