The Five: Which key stats matter for rest of PGA TOUR season?

The PGA TOUR is in San Antonio for the Valero Texas Open – the last tournament before the collective golf world sets its eyes on the Masters and Augusta National.

It’s a telling time in the golf calendar, as every player attempts to peak right around now. And we’ve reached a point in the TOUR schedule, three months in, where much of the small-sample volatility has phased out. The schedule has taken golfers to Hawaii, the West Coast, Florida and now Texas – giving the entire membership a look at a litany of different course setups and grass types. There have been shootouts and tournaments where par is a good score. At this point, every skill has been tested.

So what stats have stood out? And which of those stats will matter for the rest of the year? Here’s a look at five stats that will prove to be most consequential over the next three months of the season and beyond.

Rory McIlroy’s separating factor: the putter

Rory McIlroy has been a step above his competition to this point in the season – the first time he’s won twice on TOUR in a calendar year before the Masters.

And while his off-the-tee prowess is again a big part of his success and a driver of the impending McIlroy hype train barrelling toward Augusta, it’s his putting that has separated McIlroy from his peers and previous versions of himself.

McIlroy is on pace for the best statistical putting season of his career, currently 12th in Strokes Gained: Putting through the Texas Children’s Houston Open. It’s the one area of McIlroy’s game that has remained volatile. By and large, McIlroy’s stats off the tee, approaching the green and around the green have stayed remarkably consistent. He is perennially among the top five in driving and hovering around the top 30 in both approach and around the green play.

The putter is the one variable McIlroy hasn’t solved, with years ranging from 16th in putting (2022) to 122nd (2020). But he’s maintained an impressively consistent grasp of that area of his game in recent months. McIlroy has lost strokes on the greens just once in his last 13 starts (The Genesis Invitational, where he finished T17).

If McIlroy’s putting remains an unquestioned strength through the next several months, it will be his best chance to end the decade-long major championship drought.

Approach play pushing Collin Morikawa into a 'Big Three' with McIlroy, Scheffler

In the last 10 seasons, only five players have averaged +2.0 Strokes Gained: Total for a full season. Here’s the entire list:

• Scottie Scheffler (2023, 2024)
• Rory McIlroy (2019, 2022, 2023)
• Jon Rahm (2021)
• Dustin Johnson (2018)
• Jason Day (2016)

Scheffler and McIlroy are on track to do it again. But so is Collin Morikawa, who is pacing for the best statistical season (by Strokes Gained: Total) of his career. Morikawa is currently gaining 2.180 strokes per round, trailing only McIlroy (2.319).

Morikawa’s start to 2025 has somehow fallen under the radar, partly because he’s still searching for his first win in 18 months and also because much of the oxygen has been spent on McIlroy and Scheffler instead. But Morikawa’s hot start is worth taking seriously, mostly because it coincides with the return of his superior ball-striking. Morikawa leads the PGA TOUR in Strokes Gained: Approach, a noted bounce back after ranking 42nd last year. Morikawa’s raw strokes gained approach total (+1.190) is on pace for the best season of his career and it’s paired with above-average putting, which was lacking in many of his other standout approach play seasons.

Morikawa likely won’t earn the deserved notoriety until he wins, but don’t let him sneak up on you. Morikawa is playing exceptional golf and could smash through the current Scottie-vs.-Rory discourse and create a true "Big Three" on TOUR.

While Scheffler, McIlroy and Morikawa are all above +2.0 Strokes Gained, no other player is above +1.6. The gap between No. 3 Scheffler and No. 4 Tommy Fleetwood in SG: Total is as big as the gap between Fleetwood and No. 19 Lucas Glover.

Justin Thomas’ career putting year

Justin Thomas has an incredibly high floor because of his ball-striking, perennially among the TOUR’s top in SG: Approach. It’s not what determines his ceiling, though. That’s up to what he does with the putter.

It should come as no surprise that Thomas’ winless drought, extending back to the 2022 PGA Championship, coincides with the worst statistical putting stretch of his career. He ranked a career-worst 174th in SG: Putting last year and was outside the top 125 in 2023 as well.

Thomas has only cracked the top 100 in putting once in the last six seasons. He’s well on his way this season, though.

Thomas ranks 40th in SG: Putting through three months of the year. You have to go back to his 2017 and 2018 seasons to find comparable performance. Thomas won eight times in those two seasons and was a dominant force in the sport, rising to No. 1 in the world at his peak.

That suggests a breakthrough is coming. Thomas nearly ended the winless drought at the Valspar Championship last week before faltering late. He’s ninth in SG: Approach and 14th in SG: Tee to Green, alongside the drastically improved putting numbers. That’s the statistical profile of a multiple-time winner. Whether Thomas reaches those heights this season depends on whether the putter stays hot.

Xander Schauffele’s driving woes

There’s quite the disparity brewing in Xander Schauffele’s statistical profile this season. His approach play is elite. Everything else is … not.

Here’s a quick look at the Strokes Gained rankings:

• Off the Tee: 161st
• Approach: third
• Around the green: 161st
• Putting: 165th

It’s important to remember that Schauffele has made just three starts on the PGA TOUR since returning from a rib injury that sidelined him for six weeks. It’s a remarkably small sample size, particularly considering Schauffele returned to play Bay Hill, TPC Sawgrass and the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort – three of the sternest tests on TOUR. Nonetheless, his next start will be the Masters, and there are no silver linings at the majors for a player of Schauffele’s caliber.

The driving struggles stand out in particular, given his around-the-green and putting stats have remained very level year-to-year and are traditionally most associated with competitive rust. He’s consistently above average around the greens and elite on the greens. The driver, though, was Schauffele’s biggest improvement from 2023 to 2024 and was the catalyst for his breakthrough two-major season. He re-worked his swing and added distance with the help of swing coach Chris Como. He gained 4 yards in average driving distance, hit more fairways and jumped from 47th to 10th in Strokes Gained Off-the-Tee.

If Schauffele’s struggles off the tee persist, it’s fair to wonder how the rib injury affected his swing and his training. Or simply, if the time away from the game just got him out of sync. He doesn’t have a lot of time to correct it. Otherwise, he risks a lost major championship season in one of his prime years.

Scottie Scheffler’s win count

Scottie Scheffler has reached heady territory in his position as world No. 1. When the Masters wraps in two weeks, Scheffler will have spent 100 consecutive weeks atop the Official World Golf Ranking, the longest streak by any player not named Tiger Woods.

Scheffler has handled the role at the top of the totem pole better than most, insisting it holds nearly no meaning beyond a title. It’s a bit of external expectations and the only expectations he cares about are his own. Though we’ve seen signs in recent weeks that those internal expectations are lofty and the down-to-earth Texan is not happy with how he’s lived up to them.

That’s what makes the rest of the season fascinating. All the statistics show Scheffler is having another standout season. He’s still one of the best iron players in the sport. It’s been more than a year since he’s had a below-average week off the tee. His putting is even an asset – ranked 42nd in SG: Putting. But golfers don’t care much about those statistics if they’re not resulting in wins.

And Scheffler, after racking up nine wins in 2024, has zero this year. How long can the rest of the TOUR keep Scheffler at bay? Is his mental frustration the only thing that can stop him from winning? If he does finally win, does that open the floodgates for another historic season?