Whether or not you qualify THE PLAYERS Championship as the fifth major, it's undoubtedly one of the most exciting tournaments on the PGA Tour. The field is loaded but we also get the full-field treatment and a 36-hole cut. What makes it better, though, is that TPC Sawgrass and the location in Florida make this one of the most volatile tournaments in golf. And with that comes both risk and opportunity.
THE PLAYERS Championship just generally feels like the real start to the meat of the PGA Tour season. The Masters is now less than a month away with a major every month in between, not to mention the high-profile signature events mixed in as well. A good showing at THE PLAYERS can be the momentum and confidence boost players need to get on the right track going into that heart of the schedule.
With that and as THE PLAYERS Championship is fully underway, it's worth taking a look at four PGA Tour stars who haven't fully gotten off to the starts they wanted in the 2025 season for one reason or another and could use this trip to TPC Sawgrass to turn things around.
4. Jordan Spieth
Unlike the other players who show up on this list, Jordan Spieth has actually had some big flashes to begin his 2025 season. He finished T4 at the WM Phoenix Open and then T9 at the Cognizant Classic as well, though his other results have been a missed cut at The Genesis and a T69 at Pebble Beach. However, what we saw leading into last week's Arnold Palmer Invitational from Spieth is a big reason as to why he needs things to start turning around at THE PLAYERS.
As most golf fans know, Spieth spent most of last season dealing with a wrist injury, which caused him to fall outside the Top 60 in the Official World Golf Rankings and barely get into the Top 70 (63rd) in the end-of-season FedEx Cup standings. Subsequently, he's not been qualified for signature events and made waves with his comments after he wasn't given a sponsor's exemption into the API.
While I certainly wouldn't handled that differently than he did, he could start to eliminate that from the conversation at Sawgrass entirely. Even without a win, putting together a great week and a high finish could set him up for a big season that allows him to eventually qualify for signature events and, hopefully, get back to the Spieth-ian form that made so many golf fans fall in love with him again.
After firing off a 2-under 70 in the first round of THE PLAYERS, that's a good start for him to make a move.
3. Cameron Young
It's not even speaking out of turn to say that Cameron Young's game has been in absolute shambles at the beginning of the 2025 PGA Tour season. That wouldn't have seemed the case when he finished T8 at The Sentry but, since then, Young has missed four cuts in six starts, and finished 72nd in a no-cut event at Pebble Beach. The Top 15 finish in Phoenix is fine but his game has not been anything close to what we saw when Young burst onto the golf scene and seemed primed to be a top player in the world.
Even while gaining with his superpower off of the tee, Young is losing 0.76 strokes tee-to-green per round over his last 20 measured rounds. His approach play has plummeted and his short game has been erratic at best. Not to say that we're in his head or know what's going on, but Young simply looks lost with his golf swing when he doesn't have the driver in his hands right now — and even that, one could argue, hasn't been as dominant of an aspect in his game as it was previously.
Cold spells actually aren't that new to Young in his relatively brief time as a star-caliber presence on the PGA Tour, so perhaps this is just another one. After shooting 2-under in the first round at THE PLAYERS and getting off to a good start on Friday as well, keeping that up into the weekend could go a long way toward Young being a factor in the spring and summer of this season.
2. Sahith Theegala
On one hand, we haven't seen the lows from Sahith Theegala this season that someone like Young has put out there. He has just one missed cut in seven starts leading into THE PLAYERS, which is a positive sign that he's not completely in the wilderness with his game. What's troubling, however, is that we haven't seen the pops that we've come accustomed to with Theegala as he has just one finish in 2025 inside the Top 30 (T17 at The Genesis).
It's also not difficult to diagnose what's gone awry with Theegala's game either. When he's at his best, his ball-striking really shines. So when you look at the pedestrian finishes, it tracks that he's lost strokes tee-to-green in four of his last five tournaments. He clearly needs to find something, particularly on approach, if he wants to have the type of season that we all know he's capable of, specifically in regards to turning it up a notch in majors.
While Theegala shot 1-over in the first round at TPC Sawgrass, there were positive signs as he gained strokes both on approach and off the tee, even if the short game wasn't there for him. If he can build on that and fight to ultimately make the cut, though, it could be the type of jumping-off point for his season to get off the ground and inside the Top 30 far more regularly than he has been.
1. Xander Schauffele
Bookending this list with Spieth is a player who also has some extenuating circumstances as to why his 2025 season isn't off to the best start, Xander Schauffele. The X-Man began the year at The Sentry but didn't seem quite right. That turned out to be true as he then missed the next two months with a rib injury that kept him sidelined before he returned at the Arnold Palmer Invitational last week. The rust was apparent, especially with the short game as he lost more than 5.0 strokes around the green and going on to finish T40.
This isn't about faulting Schauffele for getting injured — it's an unfortunate reality in golf just as it is in any other sport. However, after he finally got over the major championship hump last year (twice), this was shaping up to be a potentially monster season for him. The injury seemingly derailed that in the way of robbing Schauffele of having a chance to get the ball rolling on such a campaign early in the year.
As he shakes off more of the rust from being out with the rib injury, Schauffele's measure of success at THE PLAYERS is a bit different. It should be about building on positives and getting his game in the right place moving forward. After an even-par first round and then a 1-under second round to likely see the weekend, the X-Man is checking the right boxes to get his season back on track now that he's healthy.