This article is part of our Golf Barometer series.
Joining the elite company of Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy as a PGA Championship victor at just 23 years old, Collin Morikawa's back-nine journey during Sunday's final round at TPC Harding Park is one for the history books. As if a chip-in birdie on the par-4 14th wasn't marquee enough, the Cal product went on to hit the shot of the tournament when he stuck his tee shot to seven feet on the drivable 16th. Cashing the eagle putt would give him a much more comfortable cushion on 17 and 18, remaining cool, calm and collected en route to a pair of textbook pars to close it out by two strokes and consequently hoist the Wanamaker Trophy. The PGA Tour's regular season finale now takes place this week at the Wyndham Championship hosted by Sedgefield Country Club, so we'll take a look at several players whose stock is shifting with the FedExCup Playoffs looming in the near future.
VALUE RISING
Day's bogey-free 66 on Sunday at TPC Harding Park allowed him to tie for fourth, marking his best major finish since earning runner-up honors at the 2016 PGA Championship one year after his win at Whistling Straits. The Aussie has now placed T7 or better in four consecutive starts dating to the Workday Charity Open, launching himself from 63rd to 32nd in the Official World Golf Ranking during this remarkable stretch. Day also resides comfortably within the top-70 of the FedExCup Standings now, so he'll
Joining the elite company of Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy as a PGA Championship victor at just 23 years old, Collin Morikawa's back-nine journey during Sunday's final round at TPC Harding Park is one for the history books. As if a chip-in birdie on the par-4 14th wasn't marquee enough, the Cal product went on to hit the shot of the tournament when he stuck his tee shot to seven feet on the drivable 16th. Cashing the eagle putt would give him a much more comfortable cushion on 17 and 18, remaining cool, calm and collected en route to a pair of textbook pars to close it out by two strokes and consequently hoist the Wanamaker Trophy. The PGA Tour's regular season finale now takes place this week at the Wyndham Championship hosted by Sedgefield Country Club, so we'll take a look at several players whose stock is shifting with the FedExCup Playoffs looming in the near future.
VALUE RISING
Day's bogey-free 66 on Sunday at TPC Harding Park allowed him to tie for fourth, marking his best major finish since earning runner-up honors at the 2016 PGA Championship one year after his win at Whistling Straits. The Aussie has now placed T7 or better in four consecutive starts dating to the Workday Charity Open, launching himself from 63rd to 32nd in the Official World Golf Ranking during this remarkable stretch. Day also resides comfortably within the top-70 of the FedExCup Standings now, so he'll have chances at the Northern Trust and BMW Championship to qualify for the finale of the playoffs at East Lake in early September.
With Schauffele's 8-under-par performance at the PGA Championship, he's now finished top-10 in half of his 12 major tournament appearances as he continues to play his best golf on the biggest stages. Additionally, he's racked up six top-20s in seven starts since a T3 at the Charles Schwab Challenge when the PGA Tour's schedule resumed in June. He ranks fifth in SG: Off-the-Tee over his last 24 rounds and he's sixth on Tour in both GIR percentage and SG: Tee-to-Green this season.
Top-8 showings in three of his last four starts have Finau seemingly on the verge of notching his first win since the 2016 Puerto Rico Open, but he's had issues closing the deal on Sundays when in contention. Round 4 at TPC Harding Park was mostly a positive sign, however, as he fired a four-under 66 and lost just .015 strokes putting while climbing a few spots up the leaderboard. He's risen to 22nd in the FedExCup Standings and has gained strokes off the tee in all eight of his starts since the Charles Schwab Challenge.
VALUE FALLING
McIlroy is now six starts into the Tour's resumed summer campaign and he's still without a single top-10 result, even failing to finish inside the top-30 in three consecutive tournaments from the Memorial through the PGA Championship. He's fallen from No. 1 to third in the OWGR and he ranks outside of the top-100 in SG: Approach, SG: Around-the-Green and SG: Putting over his last 24 rounds. On the season, McIlroy is outside the top-150 in both driving accuracy and proximity to the hole. Much more is expected from a player of McIlroy's caliber, who tends to enter each event as one of, if not the betting favorite.
Kuchar's lone top-30 performance since the restart came at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational where there were only 78 entrants, and he just missed the cut at the PGA Championship where shot over-par in Rounds 1 and 2. The 42-year-old has relied too heavily on the putter as of late, ultimately losing strokes from tee to green in six of his last seven starts dating to the WGC-Mexico Championship. At just 60th in the FedExCup Standings, the TOUR championship might not be on Kuchar's radar this season.
Im was on fire prior to the Tour's three-month hiatus as he won the Honda Classic in early March before finishing solo-third at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He picked up right where he left off with another top-10 at the Charles Schwab Challenge, but things have gone downhill ever since. Im has placed T53 or worse in six of his last seven starts while also missing a pair of cuts at the RBC Heritage and PGA Championship during this stretch. Through his last 36 measured rounds, Im ranks just 172nd in SG: Approach among his peers, losing an average of 2.2 strokes per event with his irons over his last five tournament entries. On the bright side, he's still fifth in the FedExCup Standings heading into the Wyndham Championship, where he tied for sixth at 16-under in 2019.
INJURY UPDATE
Koepka's knee issues are no secret at this point, but tightness in his hip sparked concern throughout the PGA Championship as he called on his trainer to stretch him out mid-round on multiple occasions. It didn't seem to bother his performance too much as Koepka remained confident and talked the talk heading into Sunday's final round just a couple shots back of the lead, but his last 18 holes were a disaster as he fell all the way into a tie for 29th while tallying six bogeys to just two birdies. Despite a T2 at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, he's descended to seventh in the OWGR and has lost 7.2 total strokes with the putter over his last 10 rounds.
