Who Is Golf’s Second-Best Player? It’s Open For Debate

It’s abundantly clear that Scottie Scheffler is the best male golfer in the world.

After that? You can make an argument for several players but no one stands out above the rest.

Scheffler is the dominant top dog among active players for everything except total career accomplishments. He just won the Masters, was the first to repeat as a Players champion and has been leading Data Golf’s Strokes Gained total metric over the past two and a half years.

We’re witnessing greatness with Scheffler, a player who has a path to becoming the best since Tiger.

If you were to rank players since 2010, Scheffler wouldn’t be at the top yet—he needs more major victories to get there—but he’s left no doubt about his No. 1 spot over the past few years, including 2024.

Who would you put behind Scheffler for the best player? Not in terms of overall résumé but a mix of current form, major championship pedigree and total skill/consistency.

I have a hard time picking someone. Here are the candidates:

Brooks Koepka

Pros: Koepka has five majors—ahead of all active players 40 or younger—and has finished top two in the majors nine times since 2017. No other golfer has finished in the top two more than four times in that same span.

When it comes to peaking for the majors, Koepka has that dog in him. And say what you will about LIV’s exhibition format but Koepka has won four times on the circuit. The most recent came last week in Singapore, two weeks before his PGA Championship title defense.

Cons: The stats paint a grim picture of Koepka’s inconsistency. After the Masters, he momentarily fell to No. 70 in the Data Golf rankings (he has since climbed back to No. 50). Relative to his peers, Koepka is not special in any particular physical skill. By the numbers, his form is roughly on par with the injury-riddled 2022 season when he ejected from all four majors. In his last two majors, he didn’t finish in the top 40.

Koepka, now 34, has a feast-or-famine mentality. It’s difficult to say he is the No. 2 player in all of golf when he has routinely finished outside the top 20 in LIV events with 54-man fields. And going back a couple of years, he was doing the same thing in PGA Tour events.

Xander Schauffele

Pros: So if Koepka is No. 50 in the Data Golf rankings, who is No. 2? It’s Schauffele, a human ATM with the highest floor among any golfer not named Scottie Scheffler. Schauffele is easily gaining more than two strokes per round against the field, leading to seven top-10 finishes this season.

You know exactly what you are getting with Schauffele. The last time he missed a cut was the 2022 Masters. He is almost a sure bet to hit the first page of the leaderboard in golf’s biggest events. He has 12 top-10 finishes in majors over just 27 appearances.

Cons: Schauffele is consistent but he doesn’t win enough. He is the antithesis of Koepka in that way. His last victory came in the 2022 Genesis Scottish Open, nearly two years ago.

For whatever reason, Schauffele doesn’t pass the eye test when he is in contention to win a major or a big tournament. The Players Championship was a great example—a couple of mental errors down the stretch cost him.

It’s hard to make a convincing case that someone who doesn’t consistently win tournaments should be considered the second-best golfer in the game.

Rory McIlroy

Pros: If it’s not the No. 2 golfer in Data Golf, how about the No. 2 player in the Official World Golf Ranking? Rory McIlroy is No. 2 in the OWGR and No. 4 in Data Golf, making him a good candidate on paper. He just won the Zurich Classic alongside teammate Shane Lowry and he also had an individual triumph at the Dubai Desert Classic this year. Similar to Schauffele, McIlroy’s floor is absurdly high.

Unlike Schauffele, McIlroy has an undeniably strong major record. While his four victories came from 2011-2014, he has 30 career top-10 finishes—and seven of them have come since 2022.

Cons: McIlroy has been just OK (by his lofty standards) in 2024, finishing outside the top 20 in six of his eight solo Tour starts.

But the biggest factor for me is that he doesn’t rise to the occasion in big events. It’s been a decade since he won a major and it does feel like “his era” has passed to a certain degree. He’s only 35 and will have a more chances to win one but it won’t be getting any easier.

Jon Rahm

Pros: The best answer to this question is probably Rahm, despite his standing at No. 5 in both Data Golf and the OWGR. Rahm has two major wins in the past four years and 12 top-10 finishes since 2018 so he checks off the recent major success box. And despite a disappointing T45 at the Masters, Rahm is 7-for-7 in top 10s on LIV since joining in December of last year so current form shouldn’t be an issue.

If you go back to 2023, Rahm won four times early in the year and was competitive in three of the four majors. You have to figure he will be involved in at least two of the next three majors, barring some mental shift since his move to LIV.

Cons: I’m concerned on the psychological side. Rahm seemed uncharacteristically cagey at the Masters and I’m not ruling out that he could be trending in the wrong direction. He is the most intense competitor of anyone who has gone to LIV so playing exhibition golf full-time could have an effect on him.

It’s nitpicking but Rahm also seems to toggle back and forth between runs where he is either a world-beater or is ejecting from tournaments. He was outside the top 30 six times last year on Tour. And in 2022, he only had one Tour victory—against a bad field in the Mexico Open.

Wyndham Clark

Pros: Wyndham Clark is No. 3 in the OWGR? I did not get that memo.

If you are looking for current form, Clark has followed up a breakout 2023 with a strong 2024. He won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and came close to winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational and Players Championship. A recent top-five result at the RBC Heritage was a nice rebound from missing the cut at the Masters.

It’s also key to note Clark’s victory in the U.S. Open last year. He has shown he can peak for the best tournaments.

Cons: It’s tough to confirm whether Clark is just on a heater or he is indeed a world-class player with staying power. His U.S. Open victory is his only top-30 finish in a major and it’s been an all-or-nothing mentality this season—outside of the four results I mentioned, he has no top 25s in six starts.

He’s in the conversation but it’s hard to put him ahead of someone like Rahm.

Ludvig Åberg

Pros: We need a better phrase than “meteoric rise” for Ludvig Åberg, who is suddenly No. 3 in Data Golf.

If this question is only about current form right now, how could you not go with Åberg? He was runner-up at the Masters—his first major start—and has five top 10s in 2024. He also just looks the part. Åberg is an incredible driver of the ball and his only real weakness is around the greens (No. 112 this season).

This is a future world No. 1 if Scheffler shows any signs of being human.

Cons: The only real con—other than the aforementioned chipping struggles—is that we just don’t have much data on Åberg. We assume he can win big tournaments but he only has one Tour title.

He did flinch in the final round of the Masters as a poor second shot on No. 11 cost him any chance of catching Scheffler, who probably wasn’t going to be caught anyway. That moment aside, he looks ready to win a major.

My Final Rankings

Given criteria of current form plus recent major record plus overall consistency, I would have my player rankings look like this:

1. Scottie Scheffler
2. Jon Rahm
3. Ludvig Åberg
4. Brooks Koepka
5. Wyndham Clark
6. Rory McIlroy
7. Xander Schauffele

This is an unscientific list, but it’s kind of a trust index heading into the PGA Championship.

I’m banking on Rahm getting back into contention during the major season. He’s too good.

At the same time, I’m bullish on Åberg to continue his torrid pace. I trust him slightly more than Koepka, just based on pure talent level and consistency. And, despite his LIV victory, I’m still a tinge concerned after Koepka had a tough Masters. His major record does a lot of heavy lifting here and justifiably so.

I think Clark could easily bag another major and I have more confidence in him to do so than McIlroy or Schauffele. Although, ironically, I think a McIlroy or Schauffele top-10 finish is a safer bet than Clark doing so.

Do you agree or disagree? Are there other players who should be considered?

Let me know below in the comments.