Scottie Scheffler has only one win this season, but he’s building a commanding FedExCup lead, and that alone is fueling a strong case for him when it comes to the Player of the Year (POY) Award. A four-time winner, Scheffler has four Jack Nicklaus Awards to his name, the fifth-most. Should he win another this year? Tom Kim says yes.

“I know some guys have had three wins, but this guy with one win, he’s leading the FedExCup by like 1,000 or close to that. So it’s pretty dominant,” Kim said of Scheffler possibly winning POY during a press conference at the St. Jude Championship. He insists he isn’t following the debate, but Scheffler is hard to ignore.

Scottie Scheffler ranks first (4,123 points) in the FedExCup rankings with Matt Fitzpatrick trailing him by 794 points. Mathematically, no golfer, not even three-time winner Fitzpatrick, can overtake him even with a win this week at Memphis. The winner will earn 750 FedExCup points.

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“You look at someone else, this is probably one of the best years that someone would have,” Kim, who considers Scheffler a “really good friend,“ continued, “and it’s just somewhat below average. So you can never take him out of the Player of the Year argument.”

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It seems below average only because Scheffler, who finds playing against Kim “funny,” hasn’t logged as many wins as he did last season (6). However, he has 11 top-5 finishes, including five runners-up, to his name in 2026. Additionally, Scheffler, who tied the course record on Friday, sits atop the Memphis leaderboard, two shots ahead of Sam Burns and Sungjae Im, who are tied for second at 11-under.

If he wins, the gap in the FedExCup leaderboard will only increase. Unless select players outdo him in these three weeks, catching him will be nearly impossible.

So, could he win the Player of the Year Award? Well, as Rory McIlroy said, it isn’t objective anymore. It depends on subjectivity and likeability. Objectively, Cameron Young and Wyndham Clark have won majors this season, while Chris Gotterup and Fitzpatrick each have three PGA Tour wins.

Unlike PGA of America’s Player of the Year Award (discontinued in 2022), the PGA Tour Player of the Year Award depends on the votes of the pros themselves. Since there’s no clear winner this time around, it is likely going to be a… popularity contest.

Keith Mitchell understood the argument in favor of most players, but said, as per Golf Channel, “It’s hard not to go with Scottie since he’s got the most points. I want to give 51 percent [of his vote] to Scottie, 49 percent Cam Young.”

If Scheffler wins, we might have a repeat of the 2019 season.

That year, McIlroy and Brooks Koepka each claimed three victories. The former had won The Players, Tour Championship, and RBC Canadian Open, while Koepka had the PGA Championship, FedEx St. Jude Championship, and The CJ Cup at Nine Bridges to his name. Yet, McIlroy won POY that season, which was an upset, according to the Golf Channel. Scheffler, with his own history of Player of the Year wins, knows better than most how the voting can break from the raw résumé.

Regardless, with another Player of the Year win, Scheffler will match Jack Nicklaus on the all-time wins list. Currently, he is tied with Ben Hogan (4), trailing Nicklaus (5), Tom Watson (6), and Tiger Woods (11).

Despite everything, however, there’s a case against him as well.

Golf analysts make case against Scottie Scheffler

Speaking on Golf Channel, Eamon Lynch named five players he is betting on: Matt Fitzpatrick (2nd, 3,329 points), Chris Gotterup (5th, 2,254 points), Cameron Young (3rd, 3,161 points), Wyndham Clark (4th, 2,255 points) and, of course, Scottie Scheffler (1st). But his clear favorite is Young.

“Cameron Young to me is the clear favorite. He won The Players Championship, he was second at The Open, he won a Signature Event at Doral,” Lynch said. Brandel Chamblee, too, sounded hesitant about Scheffler.

However, Young has little chance to overtake Scheffler, or any of the players that Lynch mentioned, actually. Currently playing at Memphis, Young sits 13 shots back of Scheffler at T41. He will need a mighty effort in R4 to climb to the top 10.

But should Scheffler not be considered at all? Lynch says, “But the Player of the Year award is not for the best statistical performance in golf. It’s for the guy who actually wins the trophies that the guys in the locker room want, and right now to me, the leading candidate for that is Cameron Young.”

Scheffler has been dominant when it comes to stats this season, ranking first in SG: Total, for instance. But unless he wins a couple of the playoff events in these three weeks, it will be hard to guess who takes home the Jack Nicklaus Award this season.