For pro golf nerds, December is the doldrums of the season. While football season perfectly contrasts golf season, mid-January through the Masters is consistently the best part of the golf calendar. Consistently great events, at fun courses full of green grass, with fields full of player looking to find a new form. It shows in our results year-over-year that as the year unfolds, markets gets sharper… in-form players become hot in the middle part of the year and ride that form, bringing more and more bettors and modelers with them.
With this gap in the schedule, I wanted to provide a year-in-review column as we turn the page for January. This was a wild year personally and professionally… new family members, a wife, a new job, and a new blog with My Dear Fourheads. Thank you all for the support and all the best in 2026.
Most played player:
Ben Griffin – It’s hard to not play Ben Griffin when he tees it up 32+ times in the calendar year and steadily jumped up the board. We harped early in the year that Ben Griffin was seeing 3-5 mph improvements in ball speed. We caught on early, but Ben really didn’t pull through on his end of the bargain until mid-Summer. And now? Ben is the DataGolf #5 player in the world. We will continue to scour the ball speed trends to find the next rankings-climber.
My biggest loser:
Sahith Theegala – We were on Theegala for almost the entirety of the January through March stretch. Simply said, Theegala didn’t deliver, and now finds himself on the outside of the PGA TOUR looking in. I feel for Sahith as he rose very quickly, and all of sudden got a case of the lefts with the driver. Coming so steep onto the ball, something went awry and Sahith still hasn’t been able to get that butter cut back in tune. Here’s to a better 2026 for the newly-engaged man.
Biggest question mark:
What happened to a crop of guys drubbed as ‘Next Man Up’? Going into the year, there were a few names on TOUR expected to take a rise. A new year always opens up a spot for somebody to catapult upwards – what shocked me is how flat a number of big name players were throughout the year.
Names like Morikawa, Hovland, Wyndham Clark and Cantlay had some high finishes, but did nothing to prove that they were the same players from years prior. Per DataGolf’s 2025 Points list, a modification of the OWGR points model, those golfers ranked 28th, 22th, 68th and 34th respectively, well behind peers who would rarely ever been deemed more skilled that that list going into 2025.
The names who took their spot atop the charts were guys like Tommy Fleetwood, Ben Griffin, J.J. Spaun and Harris English… all players with significantly better ball control the entire year, but a group of guys nobody deemed as ‘Next Man Up’ leading into this year.
Zalatoris, JT, Spieth are off the hook, given their injury spells.
Most popular post:
Not shocking, the Masters is the top-rated post of the year. The picks middled, but the content thrived… and so did the tournament itself.
Favorite tournament:
The 2025 Masters will be hands-down the best tournament of the year by nearly all indications. Drama in the lead-up (Rory), starpower early, Bryson vs. Rory on Saturday, a round 4 run-out (Bryson), a round 4 collapse (Bryson, then Rory), a friendly foe and confidant (Rose) testing the chosen one (Rory, again)… it had it all.
For the purposes of this, I’ll say the Valspar had immense drama. Upwards of 6 guys had a chance to win this Sunday… in reverse order it’s a young Ricky Castillo who held my money and couldn’t get it done – he now goes to 2026 without a TOUR card. Echavarria had a chance to level up after a Fall season win. Bud Cauley had a storyline. Jacob Bridgeman was trying to separate from bridgemen during a hot stretch.
But what rose up on the back 9 was Viktor vs. Justin Thomas. A Viktor at 50/1 who hated the feel of his game even while winning the tournament, and a JT who was in the midst of a winning slump and went off at 20/1. Viktor plucked enough great shots out of that back 9 to secure a win that many thought was change the trajectory of his year.
Guy who couldn’t get it done:
In my pile of losers, I pick off Ryan Gerard. Gerard showed elite form through the middle of the year at difficult tracks. A combination of ball-striking and short-game that should lead to future success if we can get back to the big events – what will standard between Gerard and the ‘Rico Hoey Bump’ will be a change in flat stick.
(Lucky for me, Ryan Gerard chose not to steal Jayden Schaper’s sunlight at the 2026 AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open. Schaper the real deal!)
My biggest winner:
I’m going to be your least favorite blogger and hype up my own winner: Brian freakin’ Harman @ The Valero. Selfishly, I was in the midst of a job change and the one week I had off between jobs, was the pesky Valero. A few extra hours in the lab earns a $50,000 payday.
“My guy” award:
None other than the new guy in town, Jesper Svensson. Nobody on TOUR makes stupider bogies and stupider birdies than Jesper. He will at some point reign in the bad for 4 rounds and win a golf tournament, a la Johnny Vegas. This is the year (look out at the AMEX)!
Glaze record is obvious.
Tweet that I liked and nobody else did (sans the above which was objectively funny):
Highlighting this gem because I stayed at a Fairfield Inn in Mission Viejo 2 weeks ago, near just BlockieTown. I can guarantee you that Blockie frequents the Carl’s Jr. on Oso Parkway off I-5.
Micheal Block in this note claims that he’s a better golfer with big crowds, and if he were able to play in big events with big crowds and more money and better players and more stakes, he’d be awesome!
And I’ve discovered that this was a trend…
And, from me, thanks to all that followed. We have new things brewing and a hope to really expand this platform with good friends, advisors, and golf-lovers alike.
To 2026 we go.
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