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2025 was a poor, injury-riddled season for Theegala. His best finish all year was a T18, and he had zero other top-25 finishes. He ended the season 146th in the FedEx Cup standings and dropped from 13th in the world rankings to 119th heading into 2026.

However, with an offseason to get healthy, he’s already shown a return to strong form that we never saw at any point in 2025. Through three starts this season, he’s improved his result each time—opening with a T31 at the Sony, followed by a T8 at The American Express (his first top-10 since September 2024), and most recently a T7 at the Farmers Insurance Open.

Theegala’s strengths, his putting and short game were major weak points in 2025, as he consistently lost strokes in both areas. So far in 2026, those parts of his game have returned, gaining strokes in each start and allowing him to post strong finishes. Hopefully this is just the beginning for Sahith, and he can return to being a threat week in and week out.

Ryan Gerard graduated from the Korn Ferry Tour at the conclusion of the 2024 season, with 2025 marking the start of his second stint on the PGA Tour (he previously played on Tour in 2023 but didn’t retain his card).

In 2025, Gerard showed far more promise than his first go-around, recording multiple top-10 finishes, a runner-up, and a victory at the Barracuda Championship in July. However, following that win, he struggled down the stretch, posting just one top-25 finish in his final nine starts. Gerard is an elite ball-striker who consistently gains strokes with his approach play, but the putter plagued him at times, as he lost strokes putting in 15 of his 17 tracked starts to close out the season.

To start the 2026 season, however, he’s been red hot, gaining strokes putting in four straight starts. With the putter now working alongside his elite approach play, Gerard’s last four results are: 2, 2, T2, T11. If he can maintain a more consistent and reliable putter, watch out because he has the potential to make real noise and be in the mix on Sundays multiple times this season.

Pierceson Coody is back with full-time status on Tour this year after earning his card through the Korn Ferry Tour.

Now 26 years old, Coody has gotten his 2026 campaign off to a strong start, already climbing from 95th to 47th in the world rankings in just three starts. He opened the season with a T13 at the Sony Open, followed that with a T18 at the birdie-fest American Express, and most recently recorded his best finish on the PGA Tour with a T2 at the Farmers Insurance Open.

One area of his game that has traditionally been a weakness; his around-the-green play, has been noticeably improved in 2026, contributing to this run of consistent finishes. He’s gained strokes around the green in all three starts so far, an area where he consistently lost strokes during his full-time season in 2024. If he can continue this improvement throughout 2026, Coody could be poised for big things.

Patrick Reed, the 2018 Masters champion and former PGA Tour villain before leaving for LIV, has been back in the headlines recently for two reasons: first, a return to strong form, winning the Hero Dubai Desert Classic and then following it up with a playoff loss at the Bahrain Championship; and second, announcing that he’ll be leaving LIV Golf and returning to the PGA Tour in 2027.

Reed will continue to play the 2026 season on the DP World Tour while he remains suspended from the PGA Tour until August. This stretch gives him a great opportunity to show whether this recent run is just a temporary surge in form or a sign that he’s consistently back to being a serious winning threat in professional golf.

Si Woo Kim is in tremendous form right now and continues to trend upward after a mediocre-at-best 2025. His iron play is as good as anyone’s in the game at the moment. Over his last five starts, his results read: T4, 3, T11, T6, and T2. He’s climbed back to 30th in the world rankings, just two spots shy of his career-high.

The only area holding Si Woo Kim back from consistently being among the very top players is his putting, which has cost him wins and other high finishes. At the Sony Open, he still finished T11 despite losing 1.20 strokes putting, and at The American Express he lost 0.47 strokes on the greens yet still finished T6. If he can even slightly raise the floor of his putting to match his elite approach play, he should be capable of becoming a top-10 player in the world.

Schauffele was one of the best players in the world to close out the 2024 season, winning his first two major championships at the PGA Championship and The Open. However, his follow-up season to what was arguably the best year of his career fell short.  An unfortunate early injury derailed his momentum, and he never fully regained his 2024 form after returning to health.

The biggest differences were a noticeable drop in both putting and off-the-tee play, as 2025 became the worst statistical season of his PGA Tour career in both categories. While he did pick up a win during the fall series at the Baycurrent Classic in his final start of the year, his first start of 2026 saw his long-standing cut streak come to an end—at a course that should have suited his game. He lost 0.75 strokes off the tee, an area that was once a major strength but turned into a hindrance in 2025 and appears to remain unresolved.

Bhatia is one of the game’s most accomplished players under 25 and has immense upside to become part of the game’s elite. He won his first PGA Tour event in 2023 and followed it up with another victory in 2024, leading many to believe 2025 would be a breakout year where he would take that next step. That never happened.

He struggled from April through July but began to trend back up in August, posting a T6 at the FedEx St. Jude Championship during the playoffs, a T13 at the Tour Championship, and a T11 at the Procore Championship during the fall series. Those results suggested he was finding some form heading into 2026.

Instead, the start of 2026 has been rough and inconsistent. He’s missed the cut in both starts, losing over two strokes on approach at The American Express and more than three strokes off the tee. At the Farmers Insurance Open the story flipped, he gained strokes on approach but lost over 3.5 strokes on the greens. It’s been a inconsistent start to the season for Akshay that needs to turn around.

Alex Noren, now 43 years old, saw a resurgence in his game during the summer of 2025. He finished T7 and T3 in back-to-back starts on the PGA Tour in late July before going on to win not once, but twice, on the DP World Tour at the Betfred British Masters and the BMW PGA Championship in August and September. He was eventually named an assistant captain for Team Europe, but in all honesty, he probably should have been playing on the team had it not been for injuries earlier in the 2025 season.

Noren continued to show strong form in the fall, posting finishes of T17, T16, and a runner-up in three of six starts, climbing all the way up to 11th in the world rankings.

The start of 2026, however, has been poor, as he’s missed the cut in both of his starts at The American Express and the Farmers Insurance Open. We’ll see if Noren can rebound in his next few events and get back to the level he finished 2025 at.

Collin continues to trend downward and struggle with his game. In 2024, we saw a resurgence from the two-time major winner, as he notched numerous high finishes in big events but was never able to close the deal. The same was true early in 2025, but from about the midpoint of the season onward, his game completely fell off. He hasn’t come close to winning and has struggled mightily on the greens. His best finish since April 20, 2025, is a T8, and that’s also his only top-10 finish in that span.

For a two-time major champion still under 30, that’s a very disappointing stretch, and it appears to have carried into 2026. In his lone start so far this season at the Sony Open, he missed the cut while losing 1.62 strokes putting. The Sony sets up extremely well for Morikawa’s skill set, making that missed cut especially concerning.

The putting doesn’t seem close to being solved, but perhaps he’s found something during his time off over the past couple of weeks.

Niemann, who plays on LIV Golf, took that tour by storm last year, winning five times in 13 starts. He also recorded his first top-10 finish in a major at the PGA Championship, and it looked as though he was emerging as a force to be reckoned with and one of the game’s top players. However, his form fell off a cliff this fall and has continued into the new year.

Any momentum he had appears to have disappeared. During the LIV offseason, he’s competed on both the DP World Tour and the Asian Tour, and the results have been extremely poor and concerning. In his last four starts, he’s missed the cut every time, and the last cut he did make resulted in a T55 finish. His last five starts now read: MC, MC, MC, MC, T55. He’s also consistently been losing strokes on approach during this stretch, which is not something we saw often during his dominant run.

The LIV season kicks off this week, so it will be interesting to see whether this poor form continues. His most recent missed cut came just last week at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, so this isn’t a case of him not having played in 2026 yet. We’ll see if a return to LIV sparks a turnaround.