2026 American Express PGA Power Rankings: Top 10 Golfers To Watch This Week

January 19, 2026

Ian McNeill ranks his top-10 PGA Tour players to watch for at the 2026 American Express at PGA West in Palm Springs. He gives insights into their profiles and who is primed for success.

As the PGA Tour makes its way onto the American mainland for the first time in the new year, golf fans will be treated to a rare influx of star-power at PGA West. While the event itself may not hold the prestige of it's Californian cousins to come, this week's field is one of the strongest in recent memory: with 12 of the world's top 25 players in attendance.

Couple these elite names with a venue that has produced more than its fair share of long-shot winners -- four at greater than 150-1 since 2019 -- and we could well have one of the more wide open events of the season on our hands.

But how does this elite field stack up at the top? And who, if anyone, should you be targeting on pre-week betting boards? Without further ado, here are my top 10 players to watch at this week's 2026 American Express!

No. 10 - Jason Day

As 2026's newest trend emerges, and many of us glance back at snapshots of our lives a decade ago, the golf fan in me can't help but relive what Jason Day's career looked like in 2016. At 28 years old, he was untouchable: the World No. 1, a five-win year in 2015, and his first Major Championship in the bag. The first half of 2016 only amplified his status: with titles at Bay Hill, TPC Sawgrass, and Austin CC, alongside three top-10 finishes in Majors, including a gut-wrenching runner-up to Jimmy Walker at Baltusrol. Jason was the man in golf.

Then the back pain struck. The first of a laundry list of entries on his medical dossier would rob him of the season's finale, and set in motion the challenges that redefined his career's latter half. Fast-forward to 2026: the Jason Day we see now is a different player than the one who terrorized leaderboards a decade ago. But even with the wear and tear, he has remained a PGA Tour fixture -- still ranked among the top 50–60 players on the planet -- and still very capable of turning back the clock at select venues.

His ball-striking may no longer dominate venues like Torrey Pines, Bay Hill, or Augusta National, but Day has retained his elite touch with the shorter clubs: ranking in the 96th percentile on Tour in Proximity to the Hole from inside 100 yards, and 12th in this field over his last 50 rounds on the greens.

These pronounced strengths make this week's wedge-intensive layout a particularly strong fit. Over the last five seasons, only Patrick Cantlay, Si Woo Kim, Will Zalatoris, and Ben Griffin have bested Day's strokes gained average around PGA West, and last year he recorded his best finish of the season (T3) on the back of a field-best 7.6 strokes gained from tee-to-green.

While the most Majors may no longer serve as Day’s most likely hunting ground (Pebble Beach aside), shorter venues like PGA West give him a chance to turn back the proverbial clock. With elite touch around the greens and a proven wedge game, weeks like this will be essential in his quest to remain among the sport’s best. If anyone can conjure a late-career flourish, Jason Day is still in that conversation -- and PGA West might just provide the stage for one final swan song.

No. 9 - Alex Noren

We're now entering our ninth season of Alex Noren's quest for a maiden PGA Tour title, but somehow, at 43 years of age, the dream feels as close than ever. One of just 25 players in history to win 12 or more titles on the European Tour, Noren's pedigree is matched by few in this field.

In 2026, following a fifth place finish in last year's Race to Dubai rankings, the Swede will earn a full season of PGA Tour status -- and a chance to shore up one of the few remaining gaps in an otherwise polished resume.

Noren doesn't just carry the motivation to claim his first stateside title, but the game to contend with the world's best. Over the back half of 2025, he posted near misses at the 3M Open (T7) and Wyndham Championship (T3), suffered a playoff loss at Tiger's Hero World Challenge, and captured victories in two of Europe's most prestigious tournaments of the season.

Over a remarkable three-week stretch, Noren outplayed the likes of Aaron Rai, Matt Fitzpatrick, and a host of other DP World Tour stars at the Belfry's British Masters, before taking down Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood, Jon Rahm, Joaquin Niemann, and nine other top 30 players at the DP World Tour's Flagship event at Wentworth.

Nine years after his breakout 2016 campaign that propelled him to a career-best No. 8 in the Official World Golf Rankings, the Swede logged the second most prolific season of his career at 42, climbing back to No. 12 and proving his elite game hasn't lost a step.

This week, his ball-striking precision and short-game proficiency align perfectly with PGA West's demands. Noren recently led both the 3M Open and Hero World Challenge fields in SG: Putting (+10.3 and +7.6 respectively), and gained an average of 2.52 strokes on approach across his final nine starts.

At a venue that demands precision over power and surgical execution over artistic liberty, Noren does not need to reinvent himself to land in a winning position. He's already logged two top-25 finishes around these grounds since 2020, and with the form he's recently shown, the top of Sunday's leaderboard is undoubtedly within reach.

No. 8 - Ludvig Aberg

Before the hoards of Swedes and fangirls come running to defend their king, I'm fully aware that Ludvig Aberg has the talent to make a ranking like this look very stupid. I do not view his No. 8 spot on this list as an indictment of Aberg's ability, but rather a testament to this week's field. In fact, Ludvig ended his 2025 campaign on a very positive note: logging four finishes of ninth or better -- and none worse than 23rd -- over his final eight starts.

In future iterations of these power rankings, I fully expect to give the 26-year-old his due, but my main hesitation with Ludvig's projection this week comes in his fit for PGA West. His immense talents allow him to make some of the game's hardest facets appear mundane by comparison, but how will he stack up when the playing field is leveled for players who couldn't hope to match him at a more demanding venue?

My numbers suggest he's a relatively average wedge player: sitting in the 43rd and 56th percentiles from 50-100 and 100-150 yards respectively, and while his putter is far from a liability (ranked 76th of 166 in this field over his last 50 rounds), it's not the weapon he'll likely need it to be when half of the field is staring down 15-foot birdie looks on every other hole.

I say all this with the caveat that we've seen Ludvig shatter this exact narrative before. Just five months out of college, in only his 11th professional start on the PGA Tour, Aberg put Sea Island's Seaside Course to the sword: setting a tournament scoring record of (-29) in a runaway four-stroke win -- his first PGA Tour title.

Sea Island, like PGA West, features a benign, wedge-intensive layout with ample room to miss off of the tee. It's exactly the kind of venue that should level the playing field for those who don't share Ludvig's immense ball-striking gifts. If he gains the same 2.14 strokes putting per round that he did that week, he's very likely to flirt with another scoring week in the process. I'm simply willing to bet that the best days of his 2026 season are still further down the line.

No. 7 - Patrick Cantlay

Despite its status as one of the Tour's.. less celebrated events, Patrick Cantlay has routinely been one of PGA West's biggest advocates: lauding the three-course rotation as one of his favorite weeks of the year.

"I like playing California golf, it's only a couple hours from where I grew up, so I played a lot of golf over the years here in the desert. Golf courses are usually in good shape. Especially at La Quinta Country Club. It feels like you should make almost every putt you hit out there."

We can debate the cause and effect of his mindset versus his career catalogue of results around PGA West, but one thing is for sure: nobody has been as consistently prolific as the Long Beach native around the Coachella Valley. Cantlay has logged finishes of 2nd, 5th, 9th, and 9th across six career starts as a professional, most notably setting the course record at the Stadium Course: a Sunday 61 in 2021 that left him just one shot short of champion Si Woo Kim.

This week, Cantlay returns to one of  his happiest hunting grounds looking to rebuild from a frustrating calendar year. Since his T5 at this event 12 months ago, Patrick managed just three top-five finishes across his next 18 starts -- and one year removed from matching his best-ever Major result (T3 at the 2024 U.S. Open), he missed three of four Major cuts for the first time in his professional career.

Still, the broader profile suggests the downturn may have been overstated. Cantlay quietly rebounded from the worst ball-striking season of his career in 2024, climbing 40 spots in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green year-over-year and finishing 2025 ranked 15th on Tour. Over his last 50 rounds, he grades out as a top-10 iron player in this field and closed the year gaining strokes off the tee in 13 of 14 starts.

The breadcrumbs are there. And if there’s any venue capable of turning underlying form into tangible results, it’s one that’s already given Cantlay a course record, multiple top-10s, and a genuine sense of comfort. A return to the California desert may be exactly what’s needed to remind us just how high his ceiling still is.

No. 6 - Matt Fitzpatrick

Perhaps partially due to a prolonged slump through parts of 2023 and 2024, I can't help but feel Matt Fitzpatrick remains an unappreciated entity in the golfing world. If his recent play is anything to go off of, however, it won't be long until the 2022 U.S. Open champion is once again in conversations revolving around the sport's top titles.

Since recording his first top-ten finish of the season in last May's PGA Championship (T8), Fitzpatrick spent the latter half of the campaign on an absolute tear. He logged eight top 10 finishes in 12 starts between June and November: seeing his world ranking rise from 85 to 22 in the process, and turning what was a lackluster season into a near trip to Eastlake and a guaranteed spot in 2026's rotation of Signature Events.

The most promising part of Fitzpatrick's 2025 season comes in the way he accrued these repeated finishes on the leaderboard's first page. From May onwards, there wasn't a single facet of his profile that didn't contribute: gaining an average of 7.44 strokes from tee-to-green and 2.92 with his putter across his final 15 starts.

These splits stacked up over a full season would put him comfortably among the game's elite, and with Fitzpatrick's legendary work ethic, I wouldn't bet against him reinforcing his place as one of the hottest players in the game through the Holiday break. In full disclosure, PGA West's break-neck scoring pace and wedge-intensive layout aren't exactly the perfect fit to Fitzpatrick's sensibilities, but if we do see his late season form carry over, an imperfect course fit won't be enough to dismiss him as a serious contender.

No. 5 - Sepp Straka

Admittedly, there won't be many spots this season where I'd favor Sepp Straka over some of the marquee names already listed. But when it comes to skills tailor-made for PGA West this week, the defending champion punches well above his weight. Looking back, Straka's 50/60-1 odds on outright boards last year feel like one of the more egregious mis-prices of the season, as his profile lays out one of the clearest cases for a player geared to take apart PGA West.

Over his last 50 rounds, Sepp ranks third in this field in SG: Approach and fourth on the entire PGA Tour when it come to gaining strokes inside of 150 yards. He remains one of the game's most reliable drivers, rating inside the top 20 in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, Driving Accuracy, and Good Drive Percentage.

His putting has also taken a sizable leap forward over the last 12 months: jumping from 104th to 41st on Tour between 2024 and 2025, and showcasing an elite ceiling on five separate occasions: gaining 1.89, 1.73, 2.34, 1.45, and 1.87 strokes per round with the flat stick over all but one of his six top-seven finishes.

Sepp does have a few deficiencies to address before he can take the final leap into the sport's very top echelon, but I don't see this week's venue as one capable of exposing his lack of distance or touch around the greens. As we saw both here and at Philly Cricket Club last year, when the course fits for Straka, he can be as dangerous of a player as there is in the game. By my numbers, he makes as strong a case as anyone to add to his vaunted short course resume -- and perhaps mount another run at a New Year's victory in 2026.

No. 4 - Russell Henley

It says a lot about a player's stature when a T19 finish in his season debut is treated like a cataclysmic failure. And while Henley did log his worst Sony Open finish in three years, there were plenty of positives to take from his first four rounds of 2026. Henley ranked fifth for the week in Strokes Gained: Approach (+5.80), including a field-best +2.64 in the final round.

Henley has now gained strokes with his iron play in each of his last nine starts dating back to June last year. And while he didn't dominate Wai'alae's greens in the same way Davis Riley or Chris Gotterup did last week, his +1.9 strokes gained rating in difficult conditions further emphasizes his place as one of the game's most reliable putters.

I highly doubt Palm Springs will present Henley with the same adversity as the windy Hawaiian coast did at points last week, and his precision ball-striking will play exceptionally well around one of the Tour's shorter, more positional venues.

PGA West long allowed shorter hitters to make their way into contention late on Sunday afternoon (Justin Lower, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Chris Kirk, Brian Harman, Tom Hoge, etc.), and Henley's week-to-week baselines both with his ball-striking and short game put him leagues ahead of that group. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him rebound from his "disappointing" 2026 debut, and if the price is right, he offers a strong combination of upside and floor case for both outright and matchup markets.

No. 3 - Ben Griffin

As I followed Round 1 coverage of the Sony Open last Thursday, I found myself quickly regretting not pushing Ben Griffin even higher in my weekly rankings. And while the blustery conditions of Friday and Saturday derailed his winning chances at the Sony, I walked away even more impressed by Griffin's profile. Despite putting at roughly field average and enduring an uncharacteristic approach slump (-3.5), Ben finished in a tie for 19th -- his 11th top 20 finish in 13 starts dating back to May's PGA Championship.

I don't anticipate that dip carrying over to the mainland for the UNC grad. Griffin has never been a particularly strong wind player, and PGA West has long been a haven for the 29-year-old -- even before he joined the elite company of the world's top 10. In his AmEx debut in 2023, he posted his best per-round putting performance of the season at Pete Dye's Stadium Course (+2.11), and each subsequent visit has only built on that foundation.

2024 saw the best putting week of his career: a staggering 4.72 strokes gained per round en route to a ninth place finish. He followed that up with a T7 in 2025, fittingly gaining strokes in every major category in a season where his tee-to-green game took its largest leap forward.

Despite a few tough days on Oahu's coast, I still hold Griffin's ball-striking prowess in high regard relative to this field. Over his last 50 rounds, he ranks as the second-best iron player and fourth-best putter in attendance -- a combination tailor-made for PGA West's birdie-heavy setup. As we saw in his win at 29-under in Mexico last fall, when scoring becomes a prerequisite rather than a luxury, Griffin has no issues pressing the accelerator late on a Sunday. His stock only continues to rise in my eyes, and as the sample size grows, it becomes more and more difficult to exclude him from win-equity conversations, regardless of the venue.

No. 2 - Sam Burns

In an event famously coined by Jon Rahm as a "*redacted* putting contest," it's fitting that the PGA Tour's best putter has found so much success around Palm Springs. Sam Burns has built a career on the back of clutch moments on the greens, and last season, his 0.983 strokes gained per round with the flat stick bested everyone on Tour by nearly a tenth of a stroke.

While Sam wasn't able to convert the best statistical putting season of his career into a victory in 2025, his six finishes of eighth or better were his most in four years. Notably, outside of his rather famous (or infamous) T7 finish at the U.S. Open at Oakmont, his four best results came at events with an average winning score of 24-under par.

I've always favored Sam at venues that don't require a ton of heavy lifting from tee through green, where he can routinely give himself birdie chances with a scoring club in hand. No course on the schedule fits that description quite like PGA West, and in six career starts around the Stadium Course dating back to 2019, the Shreveport-native has logged three finishes of 11th or better and just one result worse than 29th.

Coming into this year, Sam recorded one of the better ball-striking weeks of his season in December's Hero World Challenge: gaining 3.9 strokes on approach over four days in Albany -- second-best in the field. In the start before, he gained 3.2 strokes off of the tee at the Procore Championship at Silverado. If he can flash anything resembling that level of ball-striking consistently in 2026, his winless stretch will not last long -- and there are few venues on the schedule more capable of jump-starting that than PGA West.

No. 1 - Scottie Scheffler

Not to bury the lead on future lists, but with the current state of Scheffler's game, it's difficult to envision a weekly ranking where the World's No. 1 isn't sitting proudly in this position.

It isn't just that Scottie has no weaknesses, but that he reaches an elite level in such a large number of the game's facets. With the driver? Scheffler has gained .75 strokes per round off of the tee over the last 12 months -- the best mark of any full-time PGA Tour member. He may not hit it as far as a Rory McIlroy or a Ludvig Aberg, but his combination of above-average power and precision makes him one of the sport's preeminent total drivers.

Scottie's iron play has long been thought of as his hallmark, and since his breakout season in 2022, nobody has been able to challenge his position as the game's best approach player. He's led the Tour in SG: Approach in each of the three seasons -- in the process recording the 2nd, 3rd and 4th best Approach figures we've seen in the last 10 years, and drawing high praise from his peers -- including one of the game's most technically-minded ball-strikers:

"He's got the best spin and distance control I've ever seen. He controls the golf ball from a spin perspective so much better than everybody else. If you're 175 yard out and it's 10 miles into the wind, he knows how to control the light and spin to get that ball to land right next to the hole every hole... Probably since Tiger he's the best we've seen."

- Bryson Dechambeau

Another scary fact about Scottie's approach play is that while others may match him from a particular yardage range, he sits at or above the 98th percentile on Tour from 50-100, 100-150, 150-200, and 200+ yards -- meaning this week, at a venue that calls for an inordinate proportion of wedge shots inside 125 yards, Scottie is just as dangerous as he would be at 7,600-yard Torrey Pines a week from now.

His world-class short game may not be called upon as often in this week's race to 25-under, but his vastly improved numbers on the greens are of particular interest for anyone looking to either pay the lofty prices on outright odds boards, or fade his prospects this week. Scottie's position as the 22nd best putter on the PGA Tour would have sent shivers down many of our spines a year ago, as for nearly two years between the summer of 2022 and the spring of 2024, his struggles on the greens were the only chance the rest of the field possessed.

He's experienced a mixed bag of results on the greens of PGA West throughout his career: gaining modestly in each of his first three appearances in Palm Springs, but losing 0.3 and 1.2 over two starts in 2023 and 2024. I wouldn't put too much stock in this downward trajectory, however, as his performances at nearby TPC Scottsdale as well as TPC Sawgrass and Quail Hollow last year prove he's more than comfortable on these over-seeded surfaces. My final line will likely ring true for many Scottie Scheffler appearances going forward: if the putter does indeed make the trip to the Coachella Valley this week, there's not a man in this field who can reliably keep pace.

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