As the PGA season is about to return on Thursday after a two-month hiatus due to coronavirus, you may not remember who the top five golfers in the world are at the time of golf’s extended break. The Sporting Base is proud to provide you with this useful information.
5) Dustin Johnson–United States–The native of Columbia, South Carolina has seen his world ranking drop from number one to number five in the last three years. Just how dominant was Johnson three years ago? He was in fact first in the official world golf rankings for 91 weeks. The 2016 U.S. Open champion did not win a major title in 2019, but did finish second at the PGA Championship and Masters.
4) Justin Thomas–United States–The native of Louisville, Kentucky, has won three PGA Tour events since last summer. They include the FedEx Cup Playoff’s BMW Championship at the Medinah Country Club in Chicago, Illinois on August 18, the CJ Cup in South Korea for a second time on October 20, and the notable Sentry Tournament of Champions (the winners-only event) in Maui on January 5. The 2017 PGA Championship winner has been hit or miss so far in 2020. He has three top-six finishes and two missed cuts.
3) Brooks Koepka–United States–The native of West Palm Beach, Florida already has four major titles to his name. Koepka was able to win back-to-back win U.S. Open titles in 2017 and 2018, and back-to-back PGA Championships in 2018 and 2019. Last year at Bethpage Black, the famous public course in New York, Koepka beat Johnson by two strokes to record a four-round score of -8. Also in 2019, Koepka won his first career World Golf Championship when he won the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational in Memphis, Tennessee, with a four-round score of -16.
2) Jon Rahm–Spain–The native of Barrika, Spain has connections to Europe and the United States, as he plays on the European Tour and PGA Tour. The 25-year-old from Arizona State University is one of golf’s rising stars. All three of Rahm’s wins in 2019 came in Europe, specifically in the countries of Spain, Ireland, and the United Arab Emirates. Rahm’s best finish at a major in 2019 was a third-place finish at the U.S. Open.
1) Rory McIlroy–Northern Ireland–The native of Holywood, Northern Ireland, McIlroy was set to compete for Ireland at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer. Now that the Olympic Games have been postponed a full year because of coronavirus, McIlroy will focus his attention this year on the PGA Tour. In 2019, McIlroy won the Players Championship, the Canadian Open, the Tour Championship, and the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, China. Just how consistent has McIlroy been lately? In his last seven events, McIlroy has been in the top five.
