Players Championship: Top-10 contenders at TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course
Can Jon Rahm finally find a way to negotiate a Players Championship Sunday?
Can Max Homa take the next career step?
Can Rory McIlroy or Justin Thomas join the list of repeat winners at the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass.
More Players Championship coverage
Rahm leads Players field:Tiger Woods opts out but the best of the rest are coming to The Players Championship
Absentee champion: Cameron Smith's jump to LIV Golf leaves a void at Players Championship
Best Players Championships, Nos. 10-1:Black Saturday, Better than Most and Rickie's wild ride
The answers to those questions will come on Sunday when the 2023 Players champion accepts the Gold Man trophy from PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan after negotiating the perils of the Stadium Course and holding off the best players in golf through 72 holes.
The Times-Union ranks the top-10 contenders heading into the 49th edition of the PGA Tour’s marquee event:
1. Jon Rahm
Players history: Five starts, five made cuts.
Best finish: Tie for ninth in 2021.
Notable: Until a second-round 76 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Rahm was on a Tiger Woods-like run. Since his victory in Mexico last year, he posted 10 top-10 finishes in 15 starts, with four victories, and had won three of six starts this season. His worst finish was a tie for seventh. Rahm has to overcome his horrid weekends at the Stadium Counting an 82 in the third round in 2017 in which he missed the 54-hole cut, he's averaged 75.6 in his final 18 holes his five Players starts.
2. Max Homa
Players history: Two starts, one made cut.
Best finish: Tie for 13th in 2022.
Notable: Homa has won twice this season and finished third or better in three of his first four starts, providing the most formidable competition for Rahm. Homa has won seven times and has two victories in each of his last two seasons. He has the variety of skills needed to compete at the Stadium Course and has been a quick study since missing the cut in his first start.
3. Scottie Scheffler
Players history: Two starts, one made cut.
Best finish: Tie for 33rd in 2022.
Notable: The defending Masters champion and 2022 PGA Tour player of the year hasn’t torn up the Stadium Course yet, missing the cut and tying for 35th last year. But there isn’t a club in the bag he can’t hit and has won all five of his PGA Tour titles in the last 12 months.
4. Rory McIlroy
Players history: 12 starts, seven made cuts
Best finish: Won in 2019.
Notable: It’s been feast or famine for him in The Players. McIlroy missed his first three cuts, rattled off three top-10s in a row, then has gone missed cut, victory, missed cut, tie for 33rd in his last four starts. He should be considered among the favorites anywhere, any time he tees it up.
5. Patrick Cantlay
Players history: Five starts, two made cuts.
Best finish: Tie for 22nd in 2017.
Notable: His relative lack of success in The Players is a bit puzzling. He would appear to have every quality required to win at the Stadium Course — accuracy off the tee and into the greens and a nervy putting touch. He shot 66-68 to start the 2018 Players but got buried, along with everyone else, under Webb Simpson’s barrage of birdies and Cantlay hasn’t made the cut since. Still, never count him out on a course where precision is everything.
6. Collin Morikawa
Players history: Two starts, one made cut.
Best finish: Tie for 41st in 2021.
Notable: He’s in the same boat with Cantlay and Scheffler in struggling in their early years in the Players. Morikawa flashed with a 66 in the final round in 2021 but missed the cut last year. He’s won five times, with two majors and a World Golf Championship, so being on a big stage and surrounded by other stars certainly doesn’t faze him.
7. Xander Schauffele
Players history: Four stats, two made cuts.
Best finish: Tie for second in 2018.
Notable: Three of his first four victories were the Tour Championship, the Sentry Tournament of Champions and a World Golf Championship and it’s only a matter of time before he rises to the occasion at a Players or a major championship. He certainly made a splash in his first Players in 2018 when he shot 14-under. Unfortunately, Simpson cruised to victory at 18-under.
8. Sam Burns
Players history: One start, one made cut.
Best finish: Tied for 26th in 2022.
Notable: Looking for a dark horse? Burns was in the next-to-last group with winner Cameron Smith and Paul Casey last year and quickly faded by playing his first eight holes at 3-over. But he seems to have the skills to be a force in the tournament for the duration of his career and winning three times last year was no fluke. Before a missed cut at Riviera, he was among the top-12 in four of six starts.
9. Justin Thomas
Players history: Seven starts, seven made cuts.
Best finish: Won in 2021.
Notable: As a rookie in 2016 he had a 65 in the third round of The Players. He matched that in the final round in 2016. He figured out how to put together four good rounds when he won in 2021 with an electrifying 12-under weekend and has made the cut in every Stadium Course start. His mixture of power and touch has led to two PGA titles and a Players, and there should be much more to come.
10. Keegan Bradley
Players history: 11 starts, eight made cuts.
Best finish: Fifth in 2022.
Notable: The past PGA champion was right there with the leaders in the final round last year, one shot off the lead after a marvelous stretch in which he birdied six of eight holes between Nos. 9 and 16. But he played the last two holes 3-over and finished four shots behind Smith. Bradley was mediocre to downright awful in his first seven Players but has two top-10s and another tie for 16th in his last four starts. A grinder who will be hard to shake if he's around the lead on Sunday.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jon Rahm, Max Homa head the Times-Union's list of top Players contenders
