Charles Schwab Challenge Power Rankings

Scottie Scheffler aims to make it three wins on the bounce after his rampant PGA Championship win as he heads to Colonial Country Club for the Charles Schwab Challenge.

A surprisingly sloppy opening nine on Sunday left the door ajar, but mistakes from primary challenger Jon Rahm allowed Scheffler to slam it shut, going on to win by five in what was his biggest margin of victory in a major.

The field is much tamer this week, with Scheffler one of two of the top 10 players in the OWGR teeing it up in Fort Worth, but the course will still provide a stern test.

The course won’t be the only test players face this week, with the temperatures set to exceed 30 degrees Celsius, with contenders also having to navigate a typical Texas breeze from Friday onwards.

Despite being a lengthy course as a par-70, 7,289-yard layout, the multiple dog legs and narrow fairways force players to club down off the tee, with driver often staying in the bag.

Golfers will be forced to plot their way around, and Colonial is extremely hard to overpower; more than half of approach shots will come from the 125-200-yard range, testing short and mid-iron skills.

Owing to the course’s length, the breezy conditions and the small greens, scrambling skills will be required, though the lowered greens shouldn’t make getting up and down overly taxing.

Scheffler is a hot favourite this week and could well be backable at anything the right side of even-money. The newly crowned PGA champion tops our Power Rankings this week, but who will his main contenders be?

5 - Daniel Berger

After long-term injury issues, Daniel Berger is enjoying a wonderful renaissance that’s seen him get back towards his 2020/21 peak.

An elite iron player at his best, Berger has gained strokes on approach in each of his last 10 outings and has gained strokes off the tee – without being particularly long – in 10 of his last 11.

A winner at Colonial in 2020, Berger is comfortable playing in the Texas wind and his excellent ball-striking could see him back in the winners’ circle for the first time since February 2021.

4 - Aaron Rai

Yet to find his ceiling, Aaron Rai has improved his game in each of the last eight years and it’s getting to the point where it’s getting harder and harder to see him fail to make the European Ryder Cup team at Bethpage Black.

The most accurate driver of the golf ball on the PGA Tour, Colonial presents an opportunity for Rai to take advantage of his supreme fairway finding without losing loads of distance to the field.

A constantly improving iron player who’s comfortable playing in the wind and on bentgrass greens, Rai will feel confident about his chances this week.

3 - Jordan Spieth

Over the course of his career, Jordan Spieth’s total strokes gained averages at around 1.15 per round. In his native Texas, however, that jumps to nearly 2.00 strokes per round.

Over the course of a tournament, Spieth is around four shots better than the field when playing in his home state, and Colonial has proven to be one of his favourite venues down the years.

Innisbrook presents a similar profile to Colonial in that it’s tree-lined, demands excellent iron play and often forces players to leave driver in the bag and it’s a course where Spieth was victorious in 2015.

Spieth also won at Colonial in 2016 and his form figures at the course read T7-T14-T2-1-T2-T32-T8-T10-2-7-MC-T37.

After a good run of four straight top-20s, including a fourth at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, Spieth has struggled in his last two outings at the Truist Championship and PGA Championship, but a return to the Lone Star state may pay dividends.

2 - Tommy Fleetwood

Not the longest driver in the world, Tommy Fleetwood feasts on courses where he gets to plot his way around, and the distance off the tee isn’t so important.

On his last six outings on courses that demand accuracy over distance off the tee, Fleetwood has finished T21-15-T22-T14-T16-7.

While Fleetwood can struggle out of the rough, he’s one of the best iron players in the world when he finds the short grass.

Fleetwood prefers grinding out pars that making loads of birdies, which should suit him at Colonial, and the forecast wind won’t knock him out of his stride in the slightest.

Strangely, for a decent putter, Fleetwood always seems much better from long range than close range, and he needs to start holing his share of short putts if he’s to turn these top-20s into wins as he chases a maiden title on US soil.

1 - Scottie Scheffler

What’s left to say about Scottie Scheffler? Any Tiger Woods comparisons will always seem overblown and premature, but at his worst he’s one of the best players in the world and at his best he wins majors by half a track.

Scheffler’s dip this season saw him post form figures of T9-T25-T3-T11-T20-T2-4-T8 before going back-to-back at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson and the PGA Championship. Four of those tournaments were Signature Events, one was the US Masters and the other was the Players.

After winning the US Masters in 2024, Scheffler followed up with the RBC Heritage the following week, so don’t worry about any PGA hangover.

In his last three outings at Colonial, Scheffler has been beaten by exactly four players but is yet to win the tournament.

Across the last 18 months, Scheffler’s performances at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson and the PGA Championship were statistically his best and fifth-best efforts (excluding the limited-field Hero World Challenge), and any questions over Scheffler’s slump have been answered.

In the first four months of the year, Rory McIlroy unofficially took the mantle of the world’s best golfer.

Last week, Scheffler snatched it back.