SI Golf X<\/a>\u00a0account.<\/p>\nBob Harig: Jordan Spieth. It\u2019s hard to believe, but Spieth has dropped to 80th in the OWGR after a lackluster season attempting to return from injury and surgery. He\u2019s got a lot to prove this year and getting back on track after an offseason after a lengthy offseason will clearly be one of the storylines. So will his ability to qualify for signature events without sponsor invites.<\/p>\n
Jeff Ritter: No one. I like Sam Burns and Shane Lowry to potentially crack the top 10 this year, but they\u2019re currently in the high-20s and not outside No. 30. I don\u2019t see anyone that far out finishing in the top 10 \u2026 but it wouldn\u2019t surprise me if someone out there proves me wrong.<\/p>\n
Max Schreiber: Akshay Bhatia. He was knocking on the door of cracking the top 20 a year ago, but endured some growing pains in 2025 with four top 10s in 26 starts. Still just 23, the sky is the limit for the lefty. And a win or two should be able to springboard him in the OWGR.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Michael]( "\\"Michael")
<\/p>\n
Michael Brennan went straight from PGA Tour Americas to the PGA Tour after a win last fall in Utah. \/ Corey Perrine\/Florida Times-Union \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n
John Schwarb: Michael Brennan. I\u2019m going to hitch onto a possible comet; this 23-year-old who had been playing the PGA Tour Americas got a sponsor exemption last fall in Utah and won it to earn his Tour card without seeing the Korn Ferry Tour. And it was no fluke, even in a softer-field fall event\u2014he won by four shots with monster drives and ball speeds over 190 mph, as if we needed a reminder that sending it with the driver is still a pretty reliable strategy in the pro game. Brennan is already 32nd in the world so climbing into the top 10 isn\u2019t out of the question if he has a standout rookie season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
More Golf from Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Are you ready for the 2026 golf season? More than three months have passed since the Ryder Cup,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-400210","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}