This Tour Championship Is a Reminder to Enjoy Golf's New Golden Age

Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa lead, while Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and others are in close pursuit at East Lake. It all has Gary Van Sickle marveling at the high level of today's top players.

ATLANTA, Ga.—Don’t look at the Official World Golf Rankings. Throw ‘em out.

Close your eyes, remember what you’ve seen over the last month and tell me, Who’s the No. 1 golfer in the world?

Tiger Woods.

Just kidding. That got your attention, though, didn’t it?

Golf observers can jump to conclusions as quickly and easily as frogs going from one lily pad to another. But seriously, the best golfer on the planet just might be from… Norway?

That would be Viktor Hovland. He’s 25, he smoked Olympia Fields for a closing 28 on the final nine last week to edge Scottie Scheffler in the BMW Championship. And he showed up big again in the sweltering heat here at East Lake. He racked up four birdies in a row on the back nine, and added another at the 17th. When it was pointed out that another Viktor birdie at the 18th hole would paste a 29 on the Tour Championship’s wall of honor, CBS announcer Colt Knost went to his understated-humor repertoire and quipped, “He’s really good at golf.”

Hovland settled for par and 30. Still good enough to share the 36-hole lead Friday with Collin Morikawa.

The numbers in the OWGR computers and Sports Illustrated World Golf Rankings will determine who’s No. 1 every week, but the eyeball test may show something else.

Hovland is on a heater, maybe. Or maybe this is how he is plays from now on.

The Tiger Era was beautiful and fun because Woods was so ridiculously remarkable. He hit at least one shot per tournament in his prime, if not one shot per day, that you watched and said, “That’s impossible!”

Parity was not a word in the PGA Tour handbook for Tiger’s time. Ask Phil Mickelson, who never finished first on the money list or won a Vardon Trophy. Thanks, Tiger.

Going into the mid-2020s, pro golf itself seems to be on a heater. A revolving-door of No. 1-quality players may turn out to be sorta-kinda-almost as exciting as Tiger’s step-on-their-necks dominance. Parity is usually disappointing when it happens in sports but it’s difficult to imagine that in this golfing landscape.

There’s Hovland, who keeps having high finishes and who fought to the bitter end in the PGA Championship, which Brooks Koepka won. Hovland already has five wins, drives it on a string and no longer has any holes in his game.

There’s Scottie Scheffler, whose happy-feet swing makes Johnny Miller and Laura Davies, also known for their unusual footwork during their swings, look like a pair of statues in the park. Scheffler’s ball-striking in 2023 tee-to-green rivals Tiger at his best.

There’s Jon Rahm. He seemingly got knocked out of his rhythm by winning the Masters, a major that comes with more ghosts and more fame than any other major. He’d already won a U.S. Open, so he wasn’t a stranger to the top of the mountain. But the Masters is golf’s Mount Olympus. A green jacket in your closet can be a tough adjustment. It can also feel like the last piece of the puzzle, no matter the player’s age. Is it easy to keep pushing yourself after a Masters win? If you win a Powerball jackpot for $788 million, do you buy more Powerball tickets the next week or are you satisfied? We know how human nature is.

There’s Rory McIlroy, who’s been so close to so many more wins and so close to breaking what’s going to turn into a 10-year major championship drought. His game seems as good as ever. The only thing stopping Rory, apparently, is Rory. Or something.

There’s Koepka, whose Masters runner-up finish and subsequent PGA Championship was a reminder of the form he showed a few years earlier, pre-knee injuries. He once said he thought he could win double-digit majors. Not 10—double digits. Eighteen, for instance, is a double-digit number. Koepka is a big-game hunter. If McIlroy had his closing gear over the last five years… well, if is just a word that means it didn’t happen. Koepka is out of sight on LIV Golf but he isn’t done hunting big game—one argument for picking him for the U.S. Ryder Cup team.

There are some other excellent players in golf. The Tour Championship’s unusual staggered-start format has done its job this week. The leaderboard at East Lake looks a lot like the world rankings. The best players are practically caught in a leaderboard traffic jam, a particularly apt analogy given that Atlanta’s traffic to and from its northern suburbs now rival the parking-lot expressways of Los Angeles.

The players who aren’t quite at the top level yet may still get there. That includes Collin Morikawa, former Open Championship and PGA Championship winner who blitzed East Lake with an opening 61; Olympic gold medalist Xander Schauffele, an East Lake specialist who hasn’t scored that first major title yet; Wyndham Clark, the newly minted U.S. Open champ whose potential has yet to be fully revealed; Matt Fitzpatrick, another U.S. Open winner who can’t be ignored; Max Homa, who isn’t done improving; and Patrick Cantlay, a man of quiet talent.

Throw LIV Golf defector Bryson DeChambeau into the mix, if only because of his 58 at the Greenbrier last month, and you’ve got a recipe for excellence, maybe some kind of parity at the top. These players may push each other to greater heights, the way Woods pushed his pursuers to be better. They did, in fact, get fitter and better but never enough to match Woods.

Back to the big question, though: Is Norway’s greatest golfer better than Scheffler or Rahm or McIlroy? Is his best better than their bests?

We have no idea. The evidence will be presented over the next five years or so. The jury can convene then. We’ll be fortunate to see this brewing battle and potential future rivalries.

Who’s the favorite in the long run? Who can say? In the short run, this Tour Championship is poised for an epic weekend. (Well, as epic as any Tiger-less tournament can be.)

Knost had it right but let’s expand it to include Scheffler and Rahm and McIlroy and Morikawa and the rest.

They’re really good at golf. Pinch yourself because you’re lucky to live in this new era, whatever it becomes.