Young stars make for incredible field

the field

Photos courtesy of PGA of America

Collin Morikawa Patrick Cantlay

The quietest young guns

Scottie Scheffler, Collin Morikawa and Patrick Cantlay are three of the least demonstrative players among golf’s current crop of young stars. But they could be ideally suited to Southern Hills.

by tony dear

Youth, it seems, is no longer wasted on the young, at least where the group of golf’s bright young things are concerned.

Masters champion Scottie Scheffler, Collin Morikawa, Viktor Hovland, Justin Thomas, Cameron Smith, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Bryson DeChambeau, Sam Burns and, to a lesser degree, perhaps Daniel Berger and the strangely difficult to categorize Jordan Spieth all appear to be living their best life right now. And it is fun to watch.

The precise reason for the trend isn’t clear, but a couple of obvious and well-known factors are evidently at play. U.S. collegiate golf, which allows talented young players to compete against each other regularly on great courses, has produced world-class players going all the way back to the first Inter-Collegiate Golf Championship in 1897, and especially since the NCAA became involved in 1939. Add to that the Tiger Woods influence which posits that experience can be overrated and if you’re good enough you’re old enough, and the result is a steady stream of golfers ready to take on the world shortly after graduating from their chosen school.

Woods won three U.S. Junior Amateur titles before entering Stanford, two U.S. Amateur trophies while he was there and one shortly after leaving. He won his first PGA Tour event a few months later, a second a couple of weeks after that, a third at the start of 1997 and, in April of that year – seven months after turning professional - his first of five green jackets and 15 majors. Woods was an historical talent of course, but watching him succeed so young was an inspiration to so many who came after him and who realized they didn’t require a decade’s worth of professional experience to win the game’s most prestigious tournaments.

The Woods effect has snowballed in recent years, meaning the world’s top10 is now packed with players under 30 years of age (eight at the time of writing, including Scheffler, who rose to No. 1 after four early-season wins capped by his rout at The Masters). Morikawa and Cantlay are two of the most impressive, and a pair we expect to give Schefffler a run for his money at Southern Hills.

By the end of last season, Morikawa, like Scheffler just 25, had already won two majors, a World Golf Championship and three other big-time tournaments. A 2019 graduate of California-Berkeley, he has a poise, nerve and quiet assurance

Scottie Scheffler

Jon Rahm Talor Gooch Viktor Hovland

very few people of his age can muster. It’s a combination of almost-hidden but extremely powerful characteristics that made his victory at the 2020 PGA Championship only slightly surprising, and last year’s deft handling of the final 18 at Royal St. George’s, where he claimed his first Claret Jug, almost predictable. His overall game is less explosive than Woods’ at a similar age perhaps, and he seems much less of a showman than Woods ever was, but the way he deals with the pressure of a Sunday backnine at a major seems eerily familiar.

Garrett Johnson, host of the ‘Beyond the Clubhouse’ podcast and a regular contributor to golf publications on both sides of the Atlantic, is a big fan.

“Morikawa probably impresses me the most among the crop of young players,” Johnson said. “He has the best mind in pro golf right now, and maybe even sport. He's so positive and thinks clearly, and he obviously has all the shots as well.”

Johnson describes Morikawa as an “old soul” saying he thinks and acts like someone who’s been doing this for much longer than he actually has. He is, in short, a natural and is bypassing the years of scartissue players of yesteryear endured before finally landing a big one.

And speaking of humility and hunger, how about the manner in which Cantlay strode to last season’s Player of the Year award and FedEx Cup win? Although he turned 30 in March (so he may be on his way out already – joking), Cantlay is another intense grinder and actually seems a little younger than he is because of a couple of missed seasons. He only played 12 times in 2019-2020, but it is his 2016 season people remember and which surely played a pivotal role in molding the player, and person, he has become.

Told he needed to sit the season out because of a stress fracture in his spine, Cantlay was spending time with his best friend and caddie, Chris Roth, in Newport Beach, Calif. Crossing a road at around 1 a.m. on Feb. 13, Roth was killed by a hitand-run driver only a few feet from where Cantlay was standing.

With the help of his family, inner circle and especially swing coach and close friend Jamie Mulligan, Cantlay healed from the mental scars sufficiently to return to the Tour in 2017. Mulligan taught him new swing moves that helped avoid any more tension on the back. And losing his best friend helped Cantlay gain a new outlook

#ThankASuperintendent

Thank A Golf Course Superintendent Day, Sept 13, 2022

Best wishes

RUSS MYERS

to Southern Hills Country Club Superintendent and 26-year GCSAA member Russ Myers, the maintenance staff and volunteers on preparing the golf course for the 104th PGA Championship.

gcsaa.org thefirstgreen.org gcsaa.org/foundation

GCSAA is dedicated to serving its members, advancing their profession and improving communities through the enjoyment, growth and vitality of the game of golf

Jordan Spieth hits his tee shot as Dustin Johnson looks on. Abraham Ancer

on life that, in time, actually proved beneficial.

“It put everything in perspective,” he told the Golf Channel’s Ryan Lavner earlier this year. “Because everything I thought was very important, obviously, in light of something like that, became completely irrelevant.”

It would be wrong to suggest that whatever happens on the golf course now doesn’t really matter to Cantlay because it plainly does. But whenever he hits a bad shot (not very often admittedly), he is able to put it behind him before he hits his next one. As soon as he and new caddie Matt Minister arrive at his ball, Cantlay is able to focus entirely on the task at hand.

Again, Garrett Johnson admires Cantlay’s inner conviction. “He has a great foundation with his team,” Johnson said. “And his drive and fire are evident. Golf at this level requires consistent repetition of your thought process, pre-shot routine and swing, and Cantlay is the master at that. He has no weakness and is so consistent which will surely lead to an important role at the Ryder Cup for many years and certainly a major. And probably soon.”

Johnson clearly believes Morikawa and Cantlay have the game and tenacity to win at Southern Hills in May. Another who is confident that both will contend is Gil Hanse, who in 2018 renovated Perry Maxwell’s 1936 original design. Southern Hills has relatively small, contoured greens surrounded by a lot of short grass, resulting in tricky chip shots for anyone failing to hit the putting surface. This, says Hanse, will put a premium on sound iron play – an area of the game at which both Morikawa and Cantlay excel.

“I think Strokes Gained; Approach The Green will be a very important part of who does well at Southern Hills,” Hanse added. “The best putter any given week is usually in contention, of course, but I like the chances of anyone who can put themselves on the small sloping greens with regularity.”

Past winners here include Tiger Woods, Retief Goosen and Nick Price – superb iron players able to find not just the green itself but the best part of it. “Collin has obviously shown he has the game to win majors,” Hanse said. “But I think his game is especially well-suited to Southern Hills. And Patrick Cantlay has the precision to win here, too.”

Hanse mentions a few of the other young guns – Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas and “local” Viktor Hovland (who lives 70 miles west in Stillwater where he played on the Oklahoma State team), but, like us, is wondering if anyone can derail Scheffler, whose game seems suited for any venue atthis point.

After being regarded as the best player not to have won on the PGA Tour, Scheffler broke through in February at the Phoenix Open, then added the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill and the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play Championship in short order. That was all a prelude to his overwhelming performance in The Masters, in which he was five shots ahead of Rory McIlroy going into the final hole.

With the participation of both Woods and defending champion Phil Mickelson uncertain, look to the young guns to come out on top at venerable Southern Hills.

Justin Thomas Rory McIlroy