10 Golfers Ready to Make a Comeback in 2017
Golf is a fickle game.
The margin of error between a well-struck shot and a shank is razor thin.
Most golfers will tell you that change is just about the only thing consistent in a golfer's life.
This is mostly due to the fact that golf is a game that can never be fully mastered. It is as much about limiting mistakes as it is executing solid shots.
And whether you have just spent an afternoon hacking your way through miles of thick rough or recorded the lowest score of your life, your performance can always be better.
Minor physical or even equipment changes can often have a profound impact on a golfer's psyche and drive them to either sky-high peaks or dark valleys.
Something as seemingly trivial as a grip change, an alignment adjustment or simply walking into a pro shop and purchasing a putter off the sales rack, as Jim Furyk did back in 2010 just prior to his run for a FedEx Cup title, can make all the difference in the world.
Here are 10 players who have been struggling in recent years but appear poised for a big comeback in 2017.
Victor Dubuisson
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2018 Ryder Cup.
Not much more needs to be said.
The 2018 Ryder Cup will be held in Victor Dubuisson's home country of France, and you can be assured that one of his top priorities over the next two years will be to play his way onto the European team.
Dubuisson had a rough 2016 season; there is no question about that.
He started off the year with two missed cuts. He then posted an 80 during his third round of the WGC-Cadillac Championship and wound up finishing tied for 52nd in the event. He went on to post one top-10 finish over the next eight months.
Dubuisson went through one stretch last season where he withdrew from the Scottish Open citing illness, missed the cut at both the Open Championship and PGA Championship, was disqualified from the Italian Open and then withdrew from the British Masters.
However, the 26-year-old Frenchman appears to be turning things around, just in time to make his run for the 2018 Ryder Cup team.
He tied for third at the Nedbank Golf Challenge, tied for fourth at the DP World Challenge and performed very well in the ISPS Handa World Cup of Golf, where he and French teammate Romain Langasque finished second.
Dubuisson clearly has the talent to perform well on golf's biggest stages. Add in some extra motivation to make the 2018 Ryder Cup team, and the likelihood of the Frenchman making a big comeback in 2017 and 2018 increases exponentially.
Francesco Molinari
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Between 2010 and 2012, Francesco Molinari won two European Tour events, reached as high as No. 22 in the World Golf Rankings and was a member of two European Ryder Cup teams.
But Molinari has struggled in recent years.
He did not record a single win between 2013 and 2015 and dropped to as high as 86th in the World Golf Rankings earlier this year before starting to turn things around.
The 34-year-old Italian has now significantly jumped up in the World Golf Rankings since June and is coming off four consecutive finishes of tied for sixth or better, including a win at the Italian Open.
As the 31st-ranked player in the world, Molinari will enter the 2017 season in a position that allows him automatic entry into the World Golf Championship events as well as most majors.
If Molinari can keep trending in the same direction he has been over the past six months, look for the two-time Ryder Cup participant to have a big 2017 season.
Adam Scott
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Since Adam Scott's strong 2013 season in which he notched four wins worldwide, including the Masters, he has won just three more times over the past two years.
The 36-year-old native of Australia struggled for much of the 2015 season as he experimented with various putting strokes he hoped would take the place of his anchored stroke upon the PGA Tour's January 1, 2016 ban.
By the start of the 2016 season, it appeared that Scott's experimental 2015 season on the greens had ultimately led to a smooth transition to a non-anchored stroke.
Scott tied for second at the Northern Trust Open and then won back-to-back events at the Honda Classic and WGC-Cadillac Championship.
But things almost inexplicably went downhill for Scott following his win at Trump Doral. He notched just one other top-10 finish over the next five months until the FedEx Cup playoffs, where he finally began to turn things around.
Scott finished within the top 10 at each of the four FedEx Cup playoff events and has recorded a total of six top-10 finishes in his last nine events worldwide.
Scott ranked 54th on tour in strokes gained from putting in 2014 but then dropped to 157th in 2015 and 129th last season.
However, Scott's ball-striking, and particularly his play off the tee, has always been so solid that if he can even marginally improve his play on the greens in 2017, he will have a big year.
Keegan Bradley
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Keegan Bradley's last win came more than four years ago at the 2012 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.
Since that time, he has dropped 94 spots in the World Golf Rankings to his current position of 108th.
Like many players who were forced to transition away from an anchored putting stroke, Bradley's struggles can be largely attributed to his performance on the greens.
Similar to Scott, Bradley began experimenting with a non-anchored putting stroke during the 2015 season in preparation for the January 2016 ban, and the 2011 PGA champion has struggled mightily since that time.
Bradley, who was ranked 47th on tour in SG:P back in 2014, dropped to 128th in 2015 and then to an abysmal ranking of 183rd during the 2016 season. This while ranking within the top 50 on tour in every other strokes gained category, including a ranking of between 12th and 17th in strokes gained from tee to green during the past two seasons.
The key to Bradley's success in 2017 and beyond will be largely determined by his putting performance, and luckily for Bradley, he has been trending in the right direction on the greens.
Bradley has finished tied for 22nd or better in each of his last four events, including top-10 finishes at the CIMB Classic and Shriners Hospital for Children Open.
During this stretch, Bradley ranked between 22nd and 66th in SG:P at the Safeway Open, Shiners Hospital for Children Open and OHL Classic.
If Bradley can manage to combine his recently improved putting performance with the high-quality ball-striking he displayed for most of last season, he could have a big comeback year ahead of him in 2017.
Martin Kaymer
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Martin Kaymer has not won a single event anywhere in the world since his big 2014 season, when he won the Players Championship and U.S. Open within just a month's time.
Between the start of the 2016 calendar year and the U.S. Open in June, Kaymer missed three cuts and had an average finish of 26th at events where he did make the cut.
However, Kaymer appears to be in the process of righting the ship. He finished tied for seventh at the 2016 PGA Championship and has finished outside of the top 20 just twice in his last nine events.
Kaymer has always been a streaky player who has a tendency to get hot for a period of time and win some of golf's biggest events (two majors and a Players Championship) before dropping offleaderboards for months, or in this case years, at a time.
But each time Kaymer has had a down period in his career, he has managed to re-emerge even stronger—if only for a short period of time.
So if history is anything to go by, we are about due for another Kaymer run at some point in 2017.
Paul Casey
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Paul Casey has not won since 2014, and although his comeback really began in late 2015, he appears to be on the brink of a major breakthrough in 2017.
Casey finished the 2014 season as the 75th-ranked player in the world, which is a substantial fall from his ranking of No. 3 back in 2009.
Although he did not win an event anywhere in the world during the 2015 calendar year, his strong play allowed him to move up 53 spots in the World Golf Rankings.
Casey continued his slow but steady ascend into the 2016 season. He had a total of eight top-10 finishes, including top-five finishes at three out of the four FedEx Cup playoff events.
The 39-year-old Englishman finished seventh on the PGA Tour in total strokes gained last season and continues to improve his putting from a ranking of 102nd in SG:P in 2015 to 75th last season, up to 51st so far during this 2017 wrap-around season.
His short game has also improved dramatically, from a ranking of 149th in strokes gained around the green in 2015 to 55th last season to a current ranking of fourth on tour.
Casey is most certainly trending in the right direction and is beginning to combine his historically solid ball-striking with a strong short game and putter.
It would be quite surprising if Casey were not able to break back into the winner circle at some point during the 2017 season.
Ryo Ishikawa
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Ryo Ishikawa was ranked within the top 30 in the World Golf Rankings by late 2009 at the young age of 18. By the end of the 2010 season, he was still ranked as high as 36th.
But Ishikawa began to fall off after the 2010 season, and by the end of 2015, he had dropped back to 103rd in the World Golf Rankings.
But the now-25-year-old has been making strides, despite a back surgery that sidelined him for several months during the early portion of the 2016 season. Ishikawa has won three times in the past 15 months and notched six other top-10 finishes.
In his last eight appearances worldwide, he has six finishes of 10th place or better, including a win at the RIZAP KBC Augusta on the Japan Golf Tour.
With a current world ranking of 95th, Ishikawa is slowly moving back toward a position that will gain him entry into most of the WGC events and major championships.
There is no question that Ishikawa went through a rough stretch in his career between 2011 and 2015, perhaps because of growing pains that inevitably come with being a worldwide golfing celebrity before the age of 18.
But at the age of 25, Ishikawa now appears to be maturing and could be primed for a big comeback in 2017 and beyond.
Jim Furyk
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Back in September 2015, Jim Furyk was forced to withdraw from the BMW Championship, citing a wrist injury that would ultimately lead to surgery the following February.
At the time, Furyk was the No. 7-ranked player in the world.
He would not attend another PGA Tour event until the Wells Fargo Championship in May 2016, at which point he had dropped back to No. 25 in the World Golf Rankings.
Upon returning from wrist surgery, Furyk’s 2016 season was something of a roller-coaster ride.
He struggled through his first four events back before finishing tied for second at the U.S. Open in his home state of Pennsylvania.
Since Furyk’s strong performance at the U.S Open, he has missed just one cut and recorded three other top-10 finishes, including tying for fifth at the Travelers Championship, where he set a PGA Tour scoring record with a 58 during the final round.
Injury certainly set Furyk back at a time when he was already beginning to enter the twilight of his PGA Tour career.
However, his tie for second at the U.S. Open and score of 58 at TPC River Highlands indicate that Furyk still has more than enough fuel left in the tank to hang with the top players in the world.
Look for a healthy Furyk to make some noise in 2017.
Ross Fisher
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Ross Fisher reached as high as No. 17 in the World Golf Rankings back in 2009 but has won only once in the past six years, and has not won an event anywhere in the world since the Tshwane Open in March 2014.
The 36-year-old Englishman finished the 2015 season as the 82nd-ranked player in the world and dropped all the way to No. 120 this past September.
Perhaps hitting his lowest ranking since 2006 served as a form of motivation for Fisher, because he has dramatically improved his game over the past three months.
On the back of three top-10 finishes in his last six events, including back-to-back second-place finishes at the Porsche European Open and Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, Fisher has managed to jump 51 spots in the World Golf Rankings to his current position of 65th.
He is now inching his way closer to a world ranking that would gain him automatic entry into the World Golf Championship events as well as several majors.
Look for Fisher to continue his upward trajectory into the 2017 season.
Jordan Spieth
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It's tough to conclude that a 23-year-old who won two PGA Tour events and went home with more than $5.5 million in earnings had an off year.
That is, until you realize that just the year prior he had won five times, including two majors, and earned more than $23 million (including the FedEx Cup bonus).
Jordan Spieth's two wins during the 2016 season came at fairly weak-fielded PGA Tour events. The first came at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions last January against a field of just 32 players. The second came at the Dean & Deluca Invitational in May, a tournament that had a strength-of-field ranking of 365, which was about middle-of-the-road for a PGA Tour event.
Spieth's 2016 struggles can be largely traced to his short-game and iron play into the green.
He dropped from seventh on tour in SG::ARG in 2015 to 24th in 2016.
But the approach game is where Spieth really struggled last season. Spieth dropped from 11th on tour in strokes gained approaching the green in 2015 to 87th last season. This calculation measures his performance on all approach shots to the green (not off the tee) against his competition.
Despite somewhat of an off year in 2016, Spieth has certainly been trending in the right direction in recent months.
From the start of the 2016 calendar year until the FedEx Cup playoffs, the former world No. 1 had an average finish of 15th with two missed cuts. Between the FedEx Cup playoffs and his most recent appearance at the Hero World Challenge, Spieth's average finish was ninth, with a dramatic playoff win at the Emirates Australian Open.
"The way we played the playoff, I think is going to do wonders for me," Spieth said afterward.
"I've been in a little bit of stall hitting shots when they mattered. ... To hit those two shots in there, right where I wanted to hit them and then make the putt is really big going forward."
This is the second time Spieth has won the Australian Open, with his last win Down Under coming in late 2014, which sparked a torrid run through the 2015 season.
If Spieth can clean up his iron play and short- game while once again building on his late-season success in Australia, we could be about to witness another hugely successful season for the young Texan.
Unless otherwise specified, all statistics from this article have come from PGATour.com or the Official World Golf Ranking website.
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