Ranking the Candidates to Take the 'King of Golf' Throne

There are plenty of very good players today, but Gary Van Sickle is seeking golf's next truly dominant figure.

Let’s travel back in time to the early 1990s. (Cue eerie sound effects.)

Professional golf at the start of that decade was in the middle of The Great In-Between Era. Jack Nicklaus was done winning major championships. So was Tom Watson, Johnny Miller, Lee Trevino, Jerry Pate, Seve Ballesteros, Raymond Floyd and assorted other semi-legends.

But Tiger Woods was still half-a-decade away from sending chills down spines. Mention him in 1990 and most would react similarly to 1988 Masters champ Sandy Lyle: “Tiger Woods? I’ve never played there.”

Phil Mickelson was barely getting started in the ‘90s. Nick Price, Fred Couples and Davis Love III were about to enjoy nice but abbreviated major runs. The game's biggest stars were Greg (The Shark) Norman, a rugged, theatrical swashbuckler beloved by the public even though he buckled his swash only twice en route to major championship wins; and Nick Faldo, an introvert who won three Masters and British Opens but no popularity contests with his Ben Hogan-like single-mindedness that kept fans, media and other players at arm’s length.

What golf had then was parity. The harsh reality of parity in pro sports is that it’s a bit of a yawn. Exhibit A: The PGA Tour's 1990 Player of the Year was … Wayne Levi, who notched the final four wins of his major-less career. Exhibit B: Levi finished second on the money list that year behind Greg Norman. Who was fifth? Jodie Mudd. Enough said.

Sometime around then, I penned a feature for a now-defunct weekly golf magazine with a headline that asked, “Where's the next king of golf?” It was a plea for help. While Norman and Faldo were certain Hall of Famers, they weren’t the dominant players the public and media hoped for. Common sense then said, "well, there will never be another dominant player because of the depth of talent, the ever-improving equipment, blah-blah-blah."

Then came Tiger Woods—the player, not the golf course. And everyone was wrong, squared.

The Second Great In-Between Era may now be in progress. Woods and Mickelson are near the end of the line and while there are plenty of impressive players, no next King of Golf is apparent. To follow the Woods-Nicklaus formula, the next King should mop up in junior, amateur and/or college golf, then break quickly out of the gates as a pro. Then again, Ben Hogan and Mickelson won their first majors at 34 so, there is no standardized path to greatness.

The next King of Golf may still be only a fourth-grader pounding on a PlayStation while watching Nickelodeon right now. But if he is already here, who is he? (Note: The Ranking will ignore a certain player’s 13-year-old son because he shouldn’t be saddled with ridiculous expectations already.)

So who does that leave? The Ranking has low confidence in the following list, which would make excellent water-cooler chatter if we still had water coolers, offices, co-workers, horrible bosses and jobs.

15. Dustin Johnson

The boat has probably pulled out on Johnson, who is 38 and, like Greg Norman, had a marvelous coulda-should run in majors with two wins and 12 top-6 finishes. DJ needs a Vijay Singh-like spree of major titles in his 40s to be That Next Guy, but is playing against thin 48-man fields in LIV Golf and piling up $44 million in earnings going to dull his edge? If so, The Ranking staff would like their edges dulled thusly, please.

14. Sahith Theegala

He’s 25, was a star collegian at Pepperdine, has a solid all-around game and had three top-6 finishes in the new season. He fumbled a chance to win in Hartford last summer on the closing hole but led the Tour in birdies as a rookie. He’s just got that look, seems ready for that first victory. Yes, this a long shot, bridge-too-far kinda call that should heat up the water cooler.

13. Bryson DeChambeau

He was golf’s biggest draw two years ago in the wake of his U.S. Open championship win at Winged Foot and his devotion to muscling up in order to hit Happy Gilmore-length drives. He is an innovator—his irons are the same length—but his Incredible Bulk experiment was a failure and he hasn’t won on Tour since that Open. A wrist injury that required surgery may be a career-changer. He was just a middle-of-the-pack guy in LIV Golf’s debut season, yikes, and seemed more interested in Long Drive competitions. At 29 he can bounce back, but with LIV’s hundred mill or so in his hip pocket, will he?

12. Xander Schauffele

That Olympic gold medal sure looks nice but X-Man is 29, has seven wins (and 10 runner-up finishes) and a fistful of sorta-kinda close brushes with majors. He is a consistently high finisher but not (yet) the consistent winner our Next King needs to be.

11. Jordan Spieth

He started quick, just like Tiger and Jack, winning a pair of majors in 2015 at 22 and adding a third two years later. Then came a mid-career slump, caused by trying to add length off the tee, and Spieth has won only two PGA Tour events in the last five years. The fearless 2015 Spieth who chased the Grand Slam to the 72nd hole of the third major, the British Open at St. Andrews, was a Tiger-esque iron player and incredible putter. Last season, he ranked 31st in strokes-gained via approach shots and a shocking 155th in strokes-gained putting. His already has a Hall of Fame career. He’ll be 30 next year—but he doesn’t seem like the same player.

10. Viktor Hovland

Let’s agree that it doesn’t mean much to win the 20-man Hero World Challenge back-to-back but the affable Norwegian keeps improving each season and seems to have the clutch gene. Hovland is 25, has five wins on the two major tours, and looks sharp in every category of play except chipping (and yes, he admits it). Why he hasn’t already rented a room in the house of short-game wizards Dave Pelz or Stan Utley is a good question. He is trending up.

9. Brooks Koepka

When he snagged four majors in a three-year span, Koepka admitted his goal was to win double-digit majors. The media thought he meant 10 but was he actually thinking 18. Knee problems changed his game—is that why he bit on the guaranteed LIV Golf money? His swagger hasn’t aged well but he still has a big game and a bigger chip on his shoulder and he’s only 32.

8. Patrick Cantlay

The Iceman is already 30 with zero majors but ranked in the top 40 of each strokes-gained stat category last season. There are no holes in his game and his putting trends toward exceptional. A back problem sidelined him for a few years but he surged with seven wins in the last three seasons. Cantlay is one of the last guys you want to face if you’re playing a Ryder Cup match. He seems to thrive on pressure, just what you expect in a major champion. He just has to get in position more often on Sundays. Maybe.

7. Justin Thomas

This two-time PGA Championship winner has all the shots and he’s always been on a big trajectory. He led Alabama to its first NCAA team title, won both major awards as college golf’s top player, has 15 wins at age 29 including those two PGAs and has posted a 59 in Tour play. The putter has held him back slightly but he can still be The Guy.

6. Collin Morikawa

The TV talking heads called him “the game’s best iron player” so many times that it became myth. Sure, he won a pair of major titles (hello, Jordan Spieth) by age 24 but hasn’t won a PGA Tour event since out-putting Spieth in that 2021 Open Championship. His putting and chipping slipped last season—hence, no victories. He’s 25 with just-OK length but that iron game means he is built to last. And he’s already won more majors than Davis Love or Fred Couples.

5. Tom Kim

Enjoy this overreaction to his late-season surge and inspiring and fun Presidents Cup run, but the truth is, Kim has a big game. The South Korean, only 20, is a true prodigy. He played his way onto the Asian Tour at 17, has two PGA Tour victories and six other international wins. That’s seriously strong at 20. Kim isn’t a power-hitter but hits it far enough and showed at the Presidents Cup that he looks like a closer. It’s too early to crown him a future King of Golf but he could be the surprise on this list.

4. Rory McIlroy

Tiger Woods told his son to model his swing after McIlroy’s, which says something. McIlroy was the Boy King once upon a time. He piled up four major wins in short order until he got sidetracked by real life. He is among the game’s biggest hitters and can overpower any course. The putter is still an issue, despite improvement, and he let the Open Championship slip away at the Old Course last summer with a weak final round. About those four major wins? The last was nearly nine years ago. He could have an even better second act, which would surprise no one.

3. Jon Rahm

That short backswing looks as if it can’t ever get off-line and maybe golf coaches should be teaching it. Rahm is 28, has a U.S. Open title, six other PGA Tour wins and eight DP World Tour victories. It’s easy to forget no long ago he was No. 1 in the world and looking unbeatable. He is a father of two young kids, which can sometimes change a player’s priorities but Rahm seems to have a relentless hunger for winning. Can he have a Seve-level career? Si, senor.

2. Cameron Smith

The man with the mullet has challenged in a couple of Masters and seems as if he’ll inevitably win one. He outplayed McIlroy at the Open last summer and is the game’s preeminent putter—maybe among the best-ever—and one of its best chippers. A game like that travels well. Playing on the LIV Golf circuit means his legacy is now solely tied to the majors. At 29, he has more to win.

1. Scottie Scheffler

Upon further review, Scheffler’s resume is closest to Tiger’s. He won dozens of junior titles, including a U.S. Junior Am (Tiger won it three times in a row); starred in college at Texas; broke out on the tour by winning four times in 2022, including that runaway Masters, and he might’ve snagged the U.S. Open, too, if not for Matthew Fitzpatrick’s shot for the ages from that fairway bunker on the 72nd hole. Scheffler is big, hits it long, ranks among the best iron players (he was first in greens hit in regulation last year), and has great touch around the greens and with his putter. If you had to bet one current player to get near double digits in major victories, he might be the man.

Check back in eight years for further details.