The PGA Tour is already four tournaments into the 2022-23 season, and a handful of golfers are already emerging out of the gate ahead of the pack. There are five tournaments remaining before the Tour takes a break for the holidays and picks back up in 2023, so let’s take a look at four names who are already off to hot starts (hint: they have all won this season).
Keegan Bradley
The veteran on the list, Bradley, is off to a great start this season after defeating Rickie Fowler and Andrew Putnam by one stroke at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP last week in Japan. The victory was Bradley’s fifth victory on Tour and his first in over four years.
Bradley, the 2011 PGA Championship winner, currently sits atop the FedEx Cup standings thanks to his win and a T5 at the Sanderson Farms Championship, the only other event he has played in this season. The 36-year-old will try to keep the blistering start together this week in South Carolina when he takes on the best golfers in the world at the CJ CUP at the Congaree Golf Club.
Mackenzie Hughes
It took six years, but the 31-year-old Canadian professional golfer picked up his second PGA Tour victory at the Sanderson Farms Championship at the beginning of the month. Hughes knocked off Sepp Straka in a playoff, firing a four-day total of 17-under, the same score to par he shot when he claimed his first victory in 2016.
A T25 at the Fortinet and a T23, last week at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP, is a great start for Hughes. The hot start has him currently ranked second in the FedEx Cup Standings.
Max Homa
Homa kicked off the 2022-23 season with a win in Napa at the first event on the schedule, the Fortinet Championship. The victory was Homa’s fifth on Tour and fourth in under two years.
Following his victory, the 31-year-old made his first appearance in the Presidents Cup, helping the American Team to a victory with a 4-0 overall record. Homa tee’d it up just one other time this season, and that was in Las Vegas at the Shriners Children’s Hospital Open, where he finished T20.
He has cracked the Top 20 in the Official World Golf Rankings and, with continued consistent play, can climb near the Top 10 in the world.
Tom Kim
Tom Kim is quickly becoming a fan-favorite on Tour after his performance at the Presidents Cup for the International Team. The light-hearted competitor is only 20 years old, but already captured a pair of PGA Tour victories at the Wyndham Championship last season and Shriners the previous month.
Kim posted a 2-3-0 overall record in Presidents Cup competition and parlayed his victory in Vegas into a T25 last week at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP. The PGA Tour needs to do everything it can to Kim on the Tour and not lose him to the LIV Invitational Series.
