Players Championship week is here and predicting who will rise from a field that is the best of the best is tricky.
The easiest thing to do is go with the defending champion and for 48 years, that was a losing proposition since the defending champion had never won The Players. Think about that for a second: Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Lee Trevino and nine other members of the World Golf Hall of Fame couldn’t go back-to-back.
Then Scottie Scheffler happened.
With a final-round 64 that tied the Sunday record score for a winner, Scheffler came storming from five shots back to win at 20-under 264, the second-lowest 72-hole total by a Players champion and a tie for the second-lowest score in tournament history.
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So going with the defending champion seems like a better pick.
But this tournament does have the rest of the top players in the world (except for top-50 LIV players such as Bryson DeChambeau and Tyrrell Hatton) and Scheffler is still trying to find the game he had last year when he won seven times after getting off to a late start due to a hand injury.
Here’s the annual attempt to handicap the top contenders, based on their Players Championship track records, performance so far in 2025 and well, the rub of a rabbit’s foot.
PAST CHAMPIONS FLIGHT
Scottie Scheffler: He missed the first month of the season after a hand injury and has played commendable golf, but hardly to the level of 2024 when he won his third Player of the Year Award. But there’s no denying he loves this course: he’s shot in the 60s in nine of his last 10 competitive rounds.
Rory McIlroy: The winner in 2019, the first year the tournament shifted to March and he bounced back last year with a top-20 finish after missing two of three cuts. He won at Pebble Beach and is driving the ball better than ever.
Justin Thomas: He won 13 times in five years but hasn’t won since the 2022 PGA, a year after he won the 2021 Players. Don’t let the passive demeanor fool you. He’s not happy with his play in the last two years and he’s ready to roar with three top-10s on the Western Swing.
INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT
Ludvig Åberg (Sweden): Is there a weakness in this game that anyone has spotted? Drives long and straight, hits lasers into the greens when he gets hot is a dangerous putter. All he did in his first Players Championship in 2024 was shoot three 67s and tie for ninth. He’d love to win in the backyard of his new First Coast residence.
Sepp Straka (Austria): The University of Georgia product harkens back to another bulldog who had great success at The Players, Hal Sutton. Hits fairways and greens relentlessly and has strong mentality with the lead in his hands. After missing the cut in his first Players, he’s tied for ninth and for 16th in his last two starts.
Hideki Matsuyama (Japan): A player from Japan has never won The Players and he will be the top candidate from that country as long as he’s playing. Matsuyama shot 65 to share the Players lead in the ill-fated 2020 tournament when the rest of the week was canceled due to the pandemic and he’s posted three finishes of eighth or higher in his last four starts.
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UNDER 30 FLIGHT
Collin Morikawa: Hard to believe he’s still only 28 years old, after two major championships and nine top-10 finishes in those events. His luck hasn’t been so good in The Players but he did tie for 13th in 2023.
Viktor Hovland: A major champion in waiting at the age of 27. Hovland has already won the FedEx Cup and is the first Norwegian to win on both the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour. He’s made the cut in all three Players starts tied for ninth in 2022 and for third in 2023.
Saith Theegala: He had a stellar college career at Pepperdine and in 2020 became the fifth player to win all three major college individual awards (Haskins, Hogan and Nicklaus Awards). He’s won only once on the PGA Tour, during a fall season event but he’s made the cut in his last eight starts in The Players, Masters, U.S. Open and PGA and tied for ninth at the Stadium Course last year.
OVER 40 FLIGHT
Adam Scott: The 2004 Players champion has been spending more time negotiating a PGA Tour-LIV agreement with the President than on the golf course but he’s still got a ton of game at 44 years old. Scott tied for 10th in the Open Championship and for 22nd in the Masters last year and he’s made 11 of his last 12 cuts at the Stadium Course.
Justin Rose: Proved he can still dig deep at 44 when he tied for third at Pebble Beach. He’s been a bit erratic but has been showing up for the big events: he tied for second at the Open Championship and tied for sixth at the PGA last year has two top-10s at The Players since it moved back to March in 2019.
Lucas Glover: He could be the perfect post-40 Players champion in the Fred Funk or Hal Sutton mode. He won the U.S. Open in 2009, lost his Tour card twice since then, bounced back on the Korn Ferry Tour Finals, worked through injuries and won twice at the end of the 2023 season. There isn’t much adversity he hasn’t faced and overcome.
FIRST COAST FLIGHT
Billy Horschel: There aren’t many golf fans who wouldn’t want to see this guy do the Gator chomp up the 18th fairway on Sunday with a two-shot lead. He’s just got to figure out a way to get to Sunday, after missing his last two cuts and withdrawing in 2022.
Ben Kohles: Don’t let the lack of Tour experience hide the fact that this guy is a proven winner. He won five college events at Virginia and was a two-time ACC Player of the Year, then won four Korn Ferry Tour events. At 35 he’s paid his dues and is trending upwards, with a couple of top-25s this season.
Nico Echavarria: The native of Colombia has won twice on the PGA Tour and lost to Nick Taylor in a playoff at the Sony Open this year.
DARK HORSE FLIGHT
Michael Kim: This guy is a workhorse, with six of eight starts this season, 30 in 2024 and 32 in 2023. He’s won once on the PGA Tour but not much success in The Players, with three missed cuts in a row. He’s better than that.
Cam Davis: Well, he can win in Detroit. The Australian has won two of the last four Rocket Mortgage Classics. He tied for sixth in the 2023 Players and has been playing well this season, with three top-20s on the Western Swing. And what about that shot from the tree roots at Pebble?
Brian Campbell: He will be a Players Championship rookie and was the first to earn his spot with a victory this season. Campbell won the Mexico Open in a playoff against Alrich Potgieter so he’s not afraid of pressure. Does nothing especially well but also isn’t glaringly deficient in any phase of the game, which can work at the Stadium Course.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Players Championship: Defending champion Scottie Scheffler leads contenders
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