Tiering Notable Skill Gainers in 2026

For this week’s update, I’m highlighting players who have made meaningful year-over-year improvements in specific skill areas. It’s a useful exercise. Players who sharpen a tool should be expected to make strides in their games, assuming nothing else in the bag craters. Cameron Young is a poignant example: his improved putting last year helped him ascend into one of the best players in the world. Typing that never gets old.  

Note: I didn’t include every player who made a jump in a given category, otherwise the graphic would’ve gotten out of hand. This is a curated list of notable names. 

A Few Notes

I am officially rescinding the “ball-speed fraud” label I attached to Min Woo Lee 12 months ago. At the time, it was fair. He bashed it around without much control, took advantage of easy setups, and got exposed on difficult golf courses. He admitted as much before this year’s Houston Open, noting that he’s dialed back his speed to prioritize accuracy. The results are undeniable. Lee is up to 11th on Tour in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, largely due to improved accuracy, and up to 50th in Strokes Gained: Approach, a massive leap from finishing 166th out of 180 qualified golfers in 2025. The Australian is now much closer to being a complete golfer, as solid play on and around the greens have always been dependable facets of his game. Four top-12 finishes in five starts between February and March suggest he is on the precipice of breaking through to another level. Despite dreadful showings the past two tournaments, including at the Masters, I am quite bullish on his career trajectory.

Like Lee, Matt Fitzpatrick has taken significant steps forward with both his driver and irons in 2026. Under the tutelage of Mark Blackburn, he has adopted a more upright iron swing, as explained in a short Luke Kerr-Dineen video. Clearly, the recent work Fitzpatrick has put in is proving effective. He currently ranks sixth in Strokes Gained: Approach — a remarkable improvement for a player who has never finished better than 33rd in that category and has often hovered in the bottom half of the Tour. Right now, I view him as the fifth or sixth best player in the world, and it would be disappointing if he doesn’t contend in at least one of the next three major championships. 

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At nearly 46 years old, Adam Scott is striking his irons as well as he has in close to a decade, ranking third on Tour in Strokes Gained: Approach this season. If he can find a halfway decent putting week, he should pop up near the top of a leaderboard at some point this year. 

It’s still very early in Michael Thorbjornsen’s professional career, but if his short game is as proficient long term as it has been in recent weeks, he is going to have a long career on the PGA Tour. Entering 2026, Thor was already one of the golfers I was most eager to buy stock in, and that was before he demonstrated improvement around the greens. Since the start of 2025, Thorbjornsen has been within three strokes of the 54-hole lead five times on the PGA Tour (excluding opposite-field events). Only three players have higher totals: Scottie Scheffler (8), Jake Knapp (7), and Andrew Novak (6). If his progression continues, he has clear top-five-player-in-the-world upside. 

Describing Robert MacIntyre’s putting gains as “year over year” is slightly misleading. Basically, he putted poorly between January and May of 2025, but since then, he has been one of the best putters in the game. I’m not sure that people are quick to toss his name around in conversations about the best putters in the world, but MacIntyre belongs in that conversation right now. He is third on Tour this season in Strokes Gained: Putting. Pair the hot putting with the best driving stretch of his career, and we’re dealing with a top-end player. Unfortunately, inconsistent iron play has kept the Scotsman from even better performance. If he can get the irons to cooperate consistently, he will turn into a bona fide top-10 player in the world. He isn’t far off now anyway. 

Finally, a nod to Karl Vilips, whose turnaround on the greens in his second year on Tour has been wildly impressive. In 2025, he ranked 166th out of 180 qualified golfers with the flatstick, losing nearly half a stroke per round. This season, he is up to 11th on Tour, gaining 0.63 strokes per round, an improvement of more than a full stroke per round! Vilips has some work to do with his ball-striking, especially off the tee, but this kind of putting leap will prove invaluable if it is sustained. I fancy the Vilips-Thorbjornsen team’s chances of winning at the Zurich Classic this week.