If you ever tune into a professional golf broadcast, the odds are high you’ve heard a commentator mention that a player may be the best in the world with a particular club in his bag.
There’s also a decent chance the commentator was exaggerating.
For example, a few years back, we used to constantly hear about how elite a putter Russell Henley was, despite Henley being somewhere around average for years until finally finding better consistency on the greens in the last two seasons.
So, this always makes me think: what would the perfect golfer truly look like heading into 2026?
Using stats from the last three years and a bit of personal opinion, I dug through the noise to assemble the perfect modern player across eight categories.
Driver: Bryson DeChambeau
Some of the world’s best competing against each other only four times a year is a shame.
The two obvious candidates for driver are Bryson DeChambeau and Rory McIlroy and I wish we saw them compete together much more often. While Rory tends to be the player most think of when choosing the best overall driver of the ball, I have to give the nod to The Scientist.
Since we’re dealing with data from different tours, we’ll use Data Golf’s true Strokes Gained metric throughout this story as it adjusts the numbers based on the strength of the field. DeChambeau has now led in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee in 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2025. In 2024, he was second only to fellow LIV player Jon Rahm.
DeChambeau bettered McIlroy in three of the four 2025 majors in SG: OTT, including the Masters when McIlroy won. He was No. 2 off the tee in Augusta, No. 1 at the PGA and No. 2 at The Open.
While DeChambeau initially struggled at times to rein in his unmatched power with enough accuracy, that’s no longer the case. Over the last 12 months, he’s slightly above average in driving accuracy and also the longest. That’s something McIlroy can’t match. For that reason, it’s clear the best driver in the world is DeChambeau.
Fairway Woods: Rory McIlroy
Golf’s latest career Grand Slam winner didn’t need to wait much longer to be a part of our perfect player.
It’s a bit harder to easily identify the best player with a fairway wood. So, I’ll admit that some of this was just based on the eye test. We’ve seen McIlroy hit some majestic long approaches over the years with a fairway wood in his hands.
But we can also look at some numbers. McIlroy has finished in the top 25 in proximity from 250-275 yards in four of the last six seasons, the most consistent performance in an understandably volatile stat.
He’s also been in the top 20 in proximity from 275-plus yards in two of the last three seasons and led the category in 2018. Other players who passed the eye test and showed well statistically were Adam Scott and Patrick Cantlay. But, considering McIlroy was my first thought and he had the numbers to back it up, I had to go with world No. 2.
Irons: Scottie Scheffler
I don’t think I need to go too far into detail here.
Scottie Scheffler is the best iron player in the world by an extremely wide margin. Viktor Hovland, who ranked No. 2 in 2025 in SG: Approach, was 0.46 strokes per round worse than Scheffler. For context, the 22nd-best iron player, Rico Hoey, was closer to Hovland than Hovland was to Scheffler.
And this was nothing new for Scheffler. He was even better in 2024, averaging 0.62 strokes per round better than the second-best player.
He’s led the PGA Tour in SG: APP in three consecutive years. If you go all the way back and include rounds from his rookie year for a six-year sample size, he’s still been the best iron player on the planet.
Of 21st Century golfers, only prime Tiger Woods can compete with what Scottie has been doing with his irons as of late, so this is a pretty easy choice.
Wedges: Hideki Matsuyama
This was a tough category. There’s an argument to be made for Scheffler taking this as well but Hideki Matsuyama edges out Henley, Scheffler and Justin Thomas.
I looked at proximity within 100 yards as well as from 50 to 125 yards for this. First off, Matsuyama, Scheffler, Henley and Thomas are in a world of their own here. Their consistency over the last three or four years in this category is impressive as they’ve ranked in the top 10 repeatedly.
With how minuscule the difference in numbers was, I chose Matsuyama simply because of how skilled he’s become with a wedge—and also so I don’t select Scheffler in too many categories.
We’ve seen the Japanese star’s standards with a wedge as a hand usually comes off the club if he’s not within 10 feet. If he can get the driver figured out, he should be competing for majors again soon.
Putter: Sam Burns
My first thought for putter was Denny McCarthy but the numbers led me to Sam Burns for the flatstick. Burns averaged +1.00 true Strokes Gained per round with the putter in 2025, easily leading all golfers. It’s a number that McCarthy hasn’t touched since 2020.
Considering Burns has also been top 10 in putting for five consecutive years, I had to lean toward the LSU product.
Their numbers over the last five years are very similar but it also helps Burns’s case that he’s often contending in tournaments. McCarthy’s putting, single-handedly, makes him a solid Tour player, but we don’t get to see him in the mix too often. For me, a lot of my judgment on putting is about holing putts under pressure.
I prefer Burns, who has won five times including a WGC and gained 3.27 strokes on the greens on Friday at Oakmont this year to take the U.S. Open lead before some rough luck in Sunday’s weather dropped him down the leaderboard.
Scrambling: Justin Thomas
I don’t think Thomas is talked about enough for his work around the greens. This has been my opinion for a while and I was glad to see the numbers back it up.
Including LIV and Tour players, Thomas has been in the top 10 in SG: Around the Green in five consecutive years (and six of the last seven).
Nobody else has managed that consistency, which is impressive given that numbers around the green tend to get noisy in volatile years.
Other players considered were Patrick Reed, Cam Smith, Jason Day and Matsuyama but none of them matched Thomas’s recent consistency.
The eye test passes here, too. Thomas has shown he has all the shots and his creativity earns bonus points.
Clutch gene: Scottie Scheffler
There’s really no arguing this one which means we get our first repeat player.
Scheffler has been untouchable in the clutch recently. He’s converted 10 consecutive 54-hole leads, the most since Tiger’s ridiculous streak of 36. His final-round scoring average over the last three years: No. 1, No. 2, No. 2.
And his final-round performance, the percentage of times a player improves his position or stays the same: No. 1, No. 1, No. 5.
Fashion: Keith Mitchell
His nickname is “Cashmere Keith.” Enough said.
While I can appreciate Adam Scott and Jason Day quite a bit, I think they both miss the mark enough to give this to Mitchell.
Which categories did I get wrong? Let me know below in the comments.
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