Tiering Player-Specific Skills to Track in 2026

This week’s update is intended to give you player-specific skill sets to track in 2026 as we get closer to the heart of the golf season. Last year, Cameron Young fixed his putting woes and became a top-10 caliber player in the world. Similarly, the following golfers can all achieve major milestones in the game if the identified skill moves in the right direction.

Viktor Hovland’s driver is the single most important piece of a player’s game to watch this season. From the time he turned pro in 2019 through his apex as arguably the best golfer in the world in late 2023, Hovland was a consistently strong driver of the golf ball. His elite driving persisted through 2024 before trending in the wrong direction starting in 2025. Since the start of last year, Viktor hasn’t been a very good driver of the golf ball. 

I’ll never forget what Hovland told me after the Open Championship last summer when I asked him about the gap between his game and Scottie Scheffler’s. Hovland essentially said that nobody is pushing Scheffler right now, and that when Hovland was playing his best golf in 2023, he was beating Scheffler all the time. Hovland’s short game can be a limiting factor, but the primary component keeping Hovland from pushing Scheffler is squirrely driving. 

Last week in Phoenix, Hovland spoke to his issues with driver, “For me I just have to put the ball in play. I'm short and crooked right now. I just have to find something to put it in play.” Despite ranking 63rd in the field off the tee, Hovland still finished T-10. If we start to see signs of better driving, he’s going to start winning tournaments again quickly. 

Bryson DeChambeau doesn’t need to become an elite iron player to win major championships in 2026, but he does need to be better than he’s been the last few years. At the PGA Championship last May, DeChambeau ranked 47th in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach and finished T-2. His chances to win a major this year will likely come down to the state of his iron play. 

{{inline-article}}

As mentioned at the top, Cameron Young’s putting improvement in 2025 boosted his game to new heights. In the 2023 and 2024 seasons, Young ranked outside the top 140 on Tour in Strokes Gained: Putting. Last year, he ranked seventh. It was a remarkable skill transformation for one of the game’s preeminent ball-strikers, a transformation that led him to his first PGA Tour win and held up in the most pressure-packed environment in the sport at Bethpage. Now, Young is frequently discussed as a trendy major contender this season, an expectation I share. The only real question I have about his game is his iron play. The putter appears to be a legitimate long-term asset now. He has loads of speed and consistently picks up strokes off the tee. Throughout his career, he has been a fine iron player, not elite. If he’s consistently gaining strokes with his irons entering Augusta, you can pick him to win the Masters.  

Last week I wrote about Ludvig Aberg and why I still believe he’s on track to be a perennial top-five player in the world. That jump is unlikely to occur without modest improvement to his short game. His short game isn’t awful like Hovland’s can be, but it doesn’t serve as a get-out-of-jail-free card like Scheffler’s or McIlroy’s. In both of the last two seasons, Aberg has ranked outside the top 100 in Strokes Gained: Around the Green. I’m keen to see if it’s a point of emphasis for Aberg to improve over the next 12-18 months. 

Luke Clanton’s putting is horrific right now. In his most recent start, Clanton gained strokes from tee to green in his round at Torrey Pines (South) but lost more than two strokes putting to miss the cut, an appropriate representation of many of his starts over the last 12 months. In the first round of the John Deere Classic last summer, Clanton gained nearly a full stroke off the tee, 1.9 strokes on approach, and lost more than three strokes putting, ranking 151st out of 156 players for the day. His ball-striking numbers give plenty of reason to be optimistic about the 22-year-old’s future, but as long as the putting remains in its current state, you won’t see his name near the top of a decent leaderboard any time soon.