The Leap: Ludvig Aberg, Viktor Hovland Among Golfers Jumping Into a New Echelon in 2024
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I’ve been writing the piece you’re about to read for the past 20 years.
I mean, not all the same exact words. After all, it would sound silly for me to right now proclaim that Geoff Ogilvy will someday win a major (which he did) or that Bubba Watson will become a fan favorite (it happened), or that Prom Meesawat will turn into a global superstar (still waiting for the Big Dolphin to get there).
This piece, which I’ve written at the beginning of January for the past two decades, is called The Leap, wherein I don’t simply predict which players will have a successful campaign, but which ones will make a jump into the next echelon of status level.
The Leap. Get it?
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then let me say that I’m sincerely flattered by the PGA Tour’s own website offering up a piece on players making The Leap, without even trying to hide the idea by using a different name. Creative stuff right there.
But hey, their piece listed nine players, and I usually list 10, so really, they’re totalllllly different.
Anyway, on with the annual show. Here are my 10 players to make The Leap in 2024.
Viktor Hovland: The Leap to Major Champion
There are others who have come closer, and perhaps even some who will win a first major title before Hovland, but it’s difficult to argue that the world’s fourth-ranked player doesn’t currently carry the weight of that ultimate backhanded compliment, Best Player to Have Never Won a Major.
When trying to discern a player’s probability of winning one of the big four, I always ask myself an all-too-obvious question: How many of them fit his game? If the answer isn’t four, then his probability takes a mathematical hit. For Hovland, though, I’m not sure there’s a tournament out there – major or not – which doesn’t suit his game right now.
As if I needed evidentiary proof, last year he finished T7 at the Masters, T2 at the PGA Championship, 19th at the U.S. Open and T13 at the The Open Championship. If I can only pick one potential winning spot for the Norwegian, I’ll go with the last of those four, as he also played in the final pairing alongside Rory McIlroy at St. Andrews two years ago, but nobody should – or perhaps will – be shocked when he wins any of them.
Ludvig Aberg: The Leap to Top 5 in OWGR
I thought I was being a little cheeky when I first started writing some notes for this piece and had Aberg leaping all the way into the top 10. I believed there was a nice parallel to the rise of Jon Rahm, who reached this level within a year of turning pro. Turns out, top 10 was too mundane of a prediction.
As the Twitter account @VC606, who does a great job following OWGR information, posted Tuesday, if Aberg wins The Sentry this week, he’ll be in the top 10 by Sunday evening. Sooo… that wasn't much of a limb that I was going out on.
Instead, I’ll ramp it up to the top five for a guy who’s already won on the DP World Tour, the PGA Tour and owns eight consecutive worldwide results of 14th or better.
Maybe there are some out there who are still skeptical of a player who’s yet to even tee it up at a major championship, but what strikes me as most intriguing about him is that he makes the game look easier than any other elite player right now.Hit it 340 down the middle, knock a wedge to 5 feet, sink the putt.
Easy game, huh? For him, it just might be. The scary part is that he’s still figuring some of it out.
Corey Conners: The Leap to Signature Event Winner
When Conners first won the Valero Texas Open as a Monday qualifier in 2019, it symbolized everything that we love about the professional game — a rags-to-riches tale based on the old chip-and-a-chair philosophy.
When he won the same tournament again last year, the prevailing sentiment was decidedly less romantic, as it was more of an “about time” reaction to one of the game’s better ball-strikers finally winning for a second time. It’s no secret that if the Canadian enjoys a spike week with the flatstick, he should contend for more titles, but that’s been too big of an “if” over the past few years.
Don’t expect that to completely change – he’s ranked inside the top 25 in both off-the-tee and approach statistics over the past three seasons but outside the top 100 both around the greens and putting – as the baseline probably is what it is, but if the good weeks with the short game turn into just a little bit better than good, he’ll win something bigger.
I’m not quite ready to say he’s a major champion in waiting, but I do think he’s the type who can receive a boost by claiming one of the eight short-field signature events.
Akshay Bhatia: The Leap to Top 25 in OWGR
In a system that predates Strokes Gained stats, I’ve always liked looking at the All-Around category as a predictor of future results. What is the All-Around? Exactly what it sounds like: A combined ranking of the other most important statistics. In most years, the top of the list reads like a who’s who of superstars.
Apparently if you do everything really well, you become really good at golf. What a concept.
Last season, Aberg (who ranked first!), Hovland, Rahm and Scottie Scheffler were curiously joined in the top five by Peter Kuest, who still had to return to Q-School in December. I’ll bypass Kuest for a leap here — although I’ll forever argue that his fan club owns the best nickname ever, “A Tribe Called Kuest” — and instead go with Bhatia, who ranked sixth, just above Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Collin Morikawa and Max Homa in the top 10.
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the one-time phenom and last year’s winner of the Barracuda Championship makes this year’s list, as his success is bound to reach past opposite-field events this time around. He’s currently 110th on the OWGR and has never been better than 100th, but with LIV players sinking by the week, it shouldn’t take as much as before for a young player like Bhatia to break into that top 25.
Cameron Champ: The Leap to Top 50 in OWGR
No player has been rewarded more for golf’s inherent ceiling/floor dynamic in recent years than Champ, who owns three career wins and, quite honestly, not a whole lot else.
Consider this: Before he left for LIV Golf, Charles Howell III was one of the more consistent players on the PGA Tour for over 20 years and still earned the same number of victories as Champ. Moral of the story: Players can preach consistency, but brief bits of brilliance mixed with long periods of failure yield greater spoils than week-in/week-out solid performances – at least in status, if not financially.
I loved what Champ said during the fall portion of the schedule about having more fun playing the game, which could unlock greater success for a guy who often seemed to be brooding his way around the course. His best career ranking is 63rd, but he's currently 265th in the world, which means this won’t be some small leap, but we know he has the offensive firepower to make it happen.
Beau Hossler: The Leap to Tour Championship Competitor
There’s going to be a more definitive line of demarcation between the haves and have-nots on the PGA Tour this season than ever before. Those who have qualified for the big-money, limited-field signature events are clearly part of the in-crowd — for now — and that includes Hossler, who vaulted himself into this echelon on the strength of a solid fall finish.
It’s not a huge leap – ah, see what I did there? – to suggest that competing in the signature events will lead to more points, which in turn will help him get an edge on reaching the field at East Lake, which in turn gets him into three of next year’s four majors. This can be a massive career home run, and Hossler will start the year already standing on third base.
Sam Ryder: The Leap to PGA Tour winner
It was more than a little ironic that during the commercial-laden broadcasts of the Ryder Cup last fall, we probably saw more of Sam Ryder – who was hawking for (who else?) Ryder trucks – than any American competitor on the course.
That helped to raise his profile amongst casual fans, but he was already on the radar of bettors, with five top-10 finishes last season, including title contentions at the Farmers Insurance Open and Valero Texas Open.
When selecting a player to win for the first time, I like going with someone who’s gotten close on a couple of previous occasions and tasted the experience of being in that environment. Don’t be surprised, based on his track record, if that initial victory comes prior to the Masters in April.
Min Woo Lee: The Leap to Fan Favorite
Going through some old editions of the The Leap, I found that some of the earliest ones were less about specific on-course achievements and more about simply becoming visible amongst the masses. As mentioned above, Bubba Watson is a guy I once mentioned as an impending fan fave; same for Anthony Kim.
Amongst a certain subsection of fans, Lee is already there – a guy with tons of game, plenty of panache and a dash of pizzazz. It’s only going to take a few more title contentions at big events for the masses to glom onto the Australian, as well, and big-event performances are something to which he’s already accustomed, with top-30 results at each of the four majors over the past two years and a T6 at last year’s Players Championship.
I hate making comparisons to players of a previous generation, but if Aberg could become the international answer (even on a much smaller scale) to Tiger Woods as far as success, then Lee could be his Phil Mickelson for the next few decades.
Daniel Brown: The Leap to PGA Tour Member
Last year, Brown ranked third on the DP World Tour in SG: Total, fifth in scoring average and won a tournament (by five strokes!), yet not only was he not inside the top 10 of players to receive a PGA Tour card for this season, he wasn’t even inside the top 20.
The 29-year-old from England owns a nice pedigree, and good things should continue if he keeps up the same style of play. I’m not sure he’s going to be the next Tommy Fleetwood or Justin Rose, but he could certainly be the next Adrian Meronk or Victor Perez, if not simply Mattieu Pavon or Jorge Campillo.
Eugenio Chacarra: The Leap to Multiple LIV Winner
One of the biggest criticisms of LIV Golf is that while it’s the tour for plenty of current superstars, it hasn’t – or maybe even can’t – foster a new crop of big-time talent. (Another criticism is that it hasn’t lent itself to being a great gambling product, something I wrote about recently.)
I think we need to be very careful before making such sweeping accusations. Chacarra was a talented collegiate prospect at Oklahoma State who won the LIV Bangkok event in the inaugural season when he was just 22 years old.
Late last year, he outlasted Matt Jones to win a 10-hole sudden-death playoff at the St. Andrews Bay Championship on the Asian Tour, and while some might still scoff at the lack of competition in either victory, it proves that the kid owns plenty of game.
On a circuit when some – not all, but some – players might be content to get fat and happy while counting their money, I think Chacarra can win a couple of times this year.
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