I’m not going to lie to you good people—these were almost dark days in the kingdom of vibes-land. At the PGA in Aronimink, for the first time ever, the winner did not appear in my guide, and missing out on Aaron Rai felt like the end of an era. Before that, I could brag about all my wins and lord it over the other handicappers:
Masters 2025: Successfully picked Rory (at No. 41) PGA Championship 2025: Successfully picked Scottie Scheffler (at No. 1!!) U.S. Open 2025: Forgot to do one, would’ve definitely had Spaun at No. 1 Open Championship 2025: Successfully picked Scottie again (at No. 4) Masters 2026: Successfully picked Rory again (No. 29)
But now … now it felt like the magic was gone, and maybe I should just hang up the vibes on the rack and disappear into that cold, vibeless sunset.
But you know something? I’m not leaving. In fact, I feel completely liberated. I am no longer a slave to picking a winner, which was the last thing keeping the vibes guide from embracing its true nature. This was supposed to be vibes-only, but I was including guys out of obligation because their odds were good.
NO. MORE.
Welcome to the raw, uncut era of the Vibes-Only Guide, where we only include the 41 guys who trigger the vibedar. These are your ascendant moonshot boys, or your desperate spiraling flailers, but what they will never be again is boring.
THIS IS VIBES UNCHAINED! HERE’S THE SKINNY FROM SHINNY ON WHO’S GOING TO WIN…EE.
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Good Vibes: Needs only the U.S. Open to complete the career Grand Slam, still No. 1 in strokes gained, perhaps more of a cornered dog than a prowling dog right now, but still a dangerous dog. Perhaps even a hungry dog. For more dog discourse, go to my new site, ScottieSchefflerIfHeWereAGolfingDog.substack.com.
Bad Vibes: Boomeranging emotionally from whiny King Lear-esque monologues on the iniquities of wind to passive-aggressive displays of barely sublimated rage (the fake fist pump is the least appealing), slowly but irrevocably revealing the petulant child beneath. Fans don’t like that shit! People don’t like that shit!
Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: No way. Too fragile in his current state. We will look back on 2026 as his year of fortifying, shedding the last layer of youth and coming back in 2027 with thicker skin and redoubled resolve. But we’re not there yet.
• • •
40. Bryson DeChambeau 
J.D. Cuban
Good Vibes: I don’t know. Ask a 9-year-old boy whose parents let the internet raise him.
Bad Vibes: I say this respectfully: He’s everything that’s wrong with the world.
Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell? No. He’s finishing 11th in LIV events, and LIV is now entirely played inside the brain of the angriest divorced dad in Akron, Ohio.
• • •
39. Jackson Van Paris 
James Gilbert
Good Vibes: I told you I’m not playing by the rules anymore! Van Paris’ selection is entirely about his name, which is incredible. It’s like if a very classy porn star met the most gentlemanly gunman the Old West ever produced. I don’t know a single other thing about him, and I don’t plan to learn This is enough.
Bad Vibes: Judging by how it’s gone with athletes in the last decade or so, the only bad vibes are literally anything else I would learn about him. You simply can’t pay me enough to Google this man. If you know a fact about him beyond his name, stay away from me and my family.
Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Usually I don’t start saying “yes” to this question until around No. 20, but I’m prepared to take the unprecedented step of guaranteeing that he’ll win at Shinnecock.
• • •
38. Sepp Straka
Good Vibes: The good vibes here are all potential, because I’m so far down on Straka in majors that he has a perpetual chance, four times every year, to throw it in my face. Time is on his side.
Bad Vibes: With four missed cuts in his last six majors and no finish better than T-41 (at the Masters, where T-41 is a T-70 anywhere else), “Straka Syndrome” just keeps getting more real. This guy is way too good to be this bad.
Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: No. I just looked it up, and Straka is 2-4 in the last two Ryder Cups for Europe, when I wasn’t even sure Europe lost two matches in those Cups combined. I just don’t think the man likes pressure?
• • •
37. Sungjae Im
Good Vibes: I get the sense, based on his face, that he’s sort of happy-go-lucky. I have absolutely nothing to back this up, but—[takes long, cool pull on cigarette]—I never promised anything more than vibes.
Bad Vibes: Between having to do his South Korean military service, some injuries to start the year and just poor play, he’s become an afterthought in the game, to the point that when you Google him, the first question in the “people also ask” section is, “What happened to Sungjae Im?,” as if they saw him panhandling by an overpass in Dallas.
Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: No, poor Sungjae will be lucky to make the cut at this point. The crazy consistency that once defined him has slipped his grasp in the last couple years.
• • •
36. Robert MacIntyre
Good Vibes: In the last vibes guide, I creepily called for him to do spoken-word ASMR audio, so I’m going to try to be less creepy this time. But hear me out: What if we dressed him up like the Loch Ness Monster and had him do poetry readings during broadcasts?
Bad Vibes: Game is trash-ola right now. Which is a shame, because he grew up playing a sport called “shinty,” and I feel like Dan Hicks could do something with “shinty” and “Shinny” if he won.
Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: No, but since the Scottish soccer team beat Haiti, 1-0, at the World Cup, I’ll give him a chance to do the equivalent: finish two shots ahead of Adrien Dumont de Chassart.
• • •
35. Angel Hidalgo 
Eurasia Sport Images
Good Vibes: The golf world fell hard for this long-haired, dashing Spaniard when he beat Rahm to win his national open, and when I saw him in the field at Shinnecock, I knew he was the perfect fit for our new-era vibes guide.
Bad Vibes: His OWGR page is mostly dire both before and after that win, so in terms of dashing Spaniards, he might be less Seve and more Don Quixote.
Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Probably not, but the ladies of Long Island are going to swoon at his roguish good looks and devil-may-care bravado. Maybe a USGA official will confront him, and he’ll carve a “Z” into the man’s shirt with a putter, then ride off on a black horse.
• • •
34. Akshay Bhatia
Good Vibes: Seems like one of the chillest very good players on tour. If I had to sum up his facial expression in eight words, it would be “sure, whatever, that’s fine, I’m cool, it’s good.”
Bad Vibes: Hasn’t sniffed a top-10 since his win at Bay Hill, but has sniffed plenty of missed cuts. I emailed his agent to ask for a list of other things he has sniffed in the last three months, but haven’t yet received a response. Which is annoying; I’m just asking for a normal sniff list. It’s a completely normal request. Why does everyone act so weird about it? Just tell me what you sniffed, bro.
Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: No, he’s obviously lost something over the summer, and Shinny could eat him alive. (And it won’t be a great meal—Akshay’s skinny.)
• • •
33. Keegan Bradley
Good Vibes: There are entire teams of frustrated mathematicians hurling their whiteboard markers angrily as they try and fail to find the secret equation to a Keegan Bradley good vibe.
Bad Vibes: Snedeker named him a vice captain for the Presidents Cup, which proves that there’s no idea so terrible that the American golf establishment won’t try it twice. It also means the Bradley pity tour that brought him to the captaincy in the first place hasn’t run out of steam.
Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: No, but I assume because we’re on the East Coast that this is one of his dozens of hometown events.
• • •
32. Sudarshan Yellamaraju
Good Vibes: Everything! The Mysterious Manitoban is my hero, and his legend grows daily, if only in my mind. Learned to golf in a dome! Self-taught from YouTube! Didn’t go to college because he couldn’t afford it! I was kind of hoping he’d win in Canada, but the more I think about it, the more I realize his first win has to come at a major.
Bad Vibes: There are entire teams of frustrated mathematicians karate chopping white boards in half in anger at the impossibility of drawing up a Sudarshan bad vibe.
Do they have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Guaranteed victory. (I realize I have already said that for Jackson Van Paris, but keep in mind this article will be read in multiple dimensions.)
• • •
31. Patrick Cantlay
Good Vibes: Just discovered the 2008 “Tortoise and the Hare” film by Jim Henson Productions. Has watched it 568 times so far this year and keeps making burner accounts to leave 10-star reviews on IMDB. (Fair warning, though: Some of his anti-hare rhetoric is pretty strong.)
Bad Vibes: Keeps calling his investment broker asking if there’s a way to “short sell human joy.”
Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell?: No. He’s slightly in a journeyman phase now, and he hasn’t been relevant in a major since he played third wheel to Rory and Bryson at Pinehurst two years ago.
• • •
30. Joaquin Niemann 
Chung Sung-Jun
Good Vibes: Just keeps racking up LIV wins, the latest in South Korea, which I guess is impressive even though LIV is now staged entirely in the DMs of X/Twitter’s rudest involuntary celibates.
Bad Vibes: I pick on Straka for struggling at majors, but pound for pound in terms of pure talent, nobody underachieves more than Niemann. He’s taken Lee Westwood’s career work to a breathtaking new level.
Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell?: He ain’t got the juice.
• • •
29. Shane Lowry
Good Vibes: I mean this as a compliment: I think Lowry can float for a long time on that Ryder Cup putt. Longer than most players. If he was 90 years old and about to be eaten by a space zombie, I think he’d go down with a smile.
Bad Vibes: That said, something in him broke when he booted the Cognizant away. Just hasn’t been himself, ands family members are worried, whispering to each other in hushed tones: “He hasn’t even cursed out a blade of grass in months!”
Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell?: Nope, and I’ll go a step further: He won’t be on the Ryder Cup team in Adare Manor [people spit out their drinks, drop their glasses, eyes bug out like a cartoon]. Yeah, I said it.
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• • •
28. The cruel, seafaring Danes
Good Vibes: There are only two of them this time, Nicolai Hojgaard and Niklas Norgaard, meaning the “Nick” faction has struck a major blow against the “Rasmus” faction in what I imagine is the nation’s central conflict. So the Danes are not many in Shinnecock, but they will burn their wooden ships by the shore and fight fiercely.
Bad Vibes: Way too much of the letter “A.”
[Gets ready to drop a reference the kids will love …]
If they wrote The Scarlet Letter in Denmark, Hester Prynne would have needed like six As on her chest.
Do they have a snowball’s chance in hell?: No. Even if you give them the lone Icelandic player in the field, the amateur Arni Sveinsson, what sort of shield wall can you make with just three men?
• • •
27. The “Man” Show
Good Vibes: As usual, we are grouping in every player who has the word “man” at the end of his last name. The roster this time includes: Jacob Bridgeman, Brian Harman, Max Greyserman, Ben Silverman and amateur Hamilton Coleman. And you know what? Because I’m feeling generous, I’m throwing in India’s Manav Shah. With a half-dozen in the Man Pack, they can’t lose.
Bad Vibes: Like the PGA, the U.S. Open thus far has not implemented a team component based on superficial name similarities. When are these people going to enter the 21st century??
Do they have a snowball’s chance in hell?: No. Jacob Bridgeman has been in the tank since winning at Riviera, the Butcher of Hoylake is middling and the rest of them are barely people.
• • •
26. Aaron Rai 
Emilee Chinn
Good Vibes: Planet Earth’s most recent winner of a golf major. [Nelly Korda appears out of nowhere to menace me with a driver] MEN’S golf major. MEN’S golf major.
Bad Vibes: Everybody treated his win pretty much the same as if your feeble grandmother went out and won the Masters: Crazy story, but an absolute fluke that will never happen again.
Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell?: Other than all the people who have been struck by lightning twice, nobody gets struck by lightning twice.
• • •
25. Hideki Matsuyama
Good Vibes: Hideki studiously avoids putting himself out there, even among Japanese media, so I need a Japanese reader to tell me which American golfer he’s most like before I can fill out this section. Beau Hossler?
Bad Vibes: In a weird career space where he seems to play his best golf from November through February. There’s a parallel universe where the calendar is flipped and he has five majors.
Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: [obnoxious Long Island sports talk radio voice] THIS GUY, HIDEKI? THIS GUY? HE AIN’T A SUMMER PLAYER, VINCE! HE JUST AIN’T! JAPAN MAY BE THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN, BUT THIS GUY’S BEGGING FOR CLOUD COVER! VINCE, HE’S THE WINTER SOLDIER!
• • •
24. Alex Smalley 
Emilee Chinn
Good Vibes: Very well-behaved, respectful, eats all his vegetables, ate a whole bar of soap to atone for the one time he said a curse word. (“Heck.”)
Bad Vibes: Seems like the kind of guy who, when he’s asking someone where the bathroom is, calls it “the little boy’s room.”
Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell?: Despite a hiccup at the Memorial, I think maybe. I have to tip my cap to how he played down the stretch at the ‘Mink, where he was good enough to stand up to everyone but Aaron Rai. After talking to his coaches, I actually believe he’s tougher than he seems!
• • •
23. Harris English 
Augusta National
Good Vibes: In my head canon, English is one of those guys who always shows up and plays well at a U.S. Open. Is it actually true? The answer is, kind of—he had three top-10 finishes in four years between 2020 and 2023. The last two have been iffier, but he’s 10-for-10 lifetime in made cuts here, so—get ready for a really great joke—he should change his name to Harris American.
Bad Vibes: Pretty high up on the Eeyore Scale, which is something I just invented to rank how much certain professional golfers remind me of Eeyore. Can’t you picture him downcast after a blown approach, saying, “not much of a shot…and that’s just right for not much of a golfer.”
Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell?: I don’t think so, but he really does punch above his weight generally in majors, so it wouldn’t shock me to see him contend.
• • •
22. Ben Griffin and Patrick Reed
Good Vibes: I’m putting them together because I believe, without irony, that they should pair these two together at the Presidents Cup just to see what happens.
Bad Vibes: Why do you ask? Are you a cop?
Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell?: Yes, they both have a chance, Griffin because he has that “Lloyd-Braun-on-Seinfeld” energy where he can fluctuate between seeming very successful or just selling computers from a phone that isn’t plugged in, and Reed because there is always a moment in the third round of every major where it seems like he’s going to win. (By the way, Reed’s last two events are the Masters and the PGA … is he just living at major venues in between tournaments until the tour lets him back on?)
• • •
21. The fierce, wave-battered Norse
Good Vibes: I just learned that Kristoffer Reitan comes from a billionaire family that owns a chain of grocery stores operating all over Scandinavia and northern Europe. That’s not necessarily a good vibe—just like with Jess Pegula in tennis, the “late bloomer who stuck with it until they had a breakthrough!” narrative is a little less cool when they had absolutely no pressure to do anything but play a sport until they turn 50—but I’m putting this in good vibes because the name of the grandfather that started the business is “Odd Reitan,” and that made me laugh.
Bad Vibes: Is it a weird feeling for Viktor Hovland that he might no longer be the best Norwegian? It felt like he was going to hold down that title for a lifetime.
Do they have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: No. Too early for Reitan in his major career, and Hovland is on notice for giving us some classic Spiethian false hope with his third-place finish in Canada. Nice try, Jørdån.
• • •
20. Si Woo Kim
Good Vibes: It’s almost been two years, and his premature “night night” celebration at the Presidents Cup is still the funniest thing that has happened in golf this century.
Bad Vibes: His Wikipedia “results in major championships” chart is indistinguishable from Joaquin Niemann’s right down to both having their only top-ten finish with a T-8 at last year’s PGA. The only difference is that Si Woo has had five more reps. You never want to be “worse, older Joaquin.”
Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell?: Kinda. See, he’s had four top tens in his last six starts, and—[eyes drift upward to the Niemann comp]—no. No, he doesn’t.
• • •
19. Harris English
Augusta National
Good Vibes: People are always asking, “why do you keep up this stupid bit where you list Harris English twice or even three times, when you could put in someone you’re not including, like Rickie Fowler?”
Bad Vibes: Why, you ask? Because I’m a bad boy…[takes long, cool pull on cigarette] … and baby, I’m no role model.
Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell?: This version of Harris? Sure.
• • •
18. Jordan Spieth
Good Vibes: You know that moment in movies when someone has gone through so much suffering and stress that they just crack, and for the rest of the time they’re just babbling incoherently with a dumb grin on their faces? That’s Spieth’s fan base, now. Something in our brains finally shattered this year, but we’re so broken that we think we’re happy.
Bad Vibes: [Cocks head to the side with a vacant grin, like the dumbest dog you know.]
What’s a “bad vibe”?
[You start to explain, we stare uncomprehendingly and then turn slowly back to our North Korean-style Spieth propaganda painting on the wall.]
Do they have a snowball’s chance in hell?: It is written that the prince of the morning shall win. It is written that the prince of the morning shall win. It is written that the prince of the morning shall win. It is written that the prince of the morning shall win. It is written that the prince of the morning shall win. It is written that the prince of the morning shall win. It is written that the prince of the morning shall win. It is written that the prince of the morning shall win. It is written that the prince of the morning shall win. It is written that the prince of the morning shall win. It is written that the prince of the morning shall win.
• • •
17. J.T. Poston/Ryan Gerard
Good Vibes: It would have taken too much effort to try to distinguish between these men, so now we have a fearsome hybrid of up-jumped plain-faced journeymen who, somewhat annoyingly, force you to pay attention to them in ways you never asked for. Good for them!
Bad Vibes: Would make Aaron Rai’s profile look like a combination of LeBron James and Lionel Messi if they somehow managed to win. It would force the R&A to fix the Open so that the reincarnated ghost of Bobby Jones wins.
Do they have a snowball’s chance in hell?: Vaguely, which is a bit too much for comfort.
• • •
16. Russell Henley
Good Vibes: I haven’t felt as good for any winner this year as I did for Henley at Colonial, after all the crap he had to endure at Bethpage due to miserable decision-making he had nothing to do with. He’s the Alfred Dreyfus of our times.
Bad Vibes: I acquit him from any charges of bad vibes. When it comes to cuts of jibs, we like this one.
Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell?: Shinny might be a bit too beastly for Russell’s muscles, but I still say he’s got a surprise or two up his sleeve.
• • •
15. Chris Gotterup 
Dom Furore
Good Vibes: In his last 30 tournaments, he’s only missed two cuts, he hits the cover off the ball and he has a mini-Koepka thing going where he seems to show up at majors.
Bad Vibes: Still not clear whether he’s secretly Danish and desperately trying to hide it. I’m going to approach him at Shinnecock, offer him a raw salted fish and see how he reacts.
Do they have a snowball’s chance in hell?: Hvis du oversætter dette og tweeter ordet “Tanketorsk” til mig, sender jeg dig en rå saltet fisk.
• • •
14. Ludvig Aberg
Good Vibes: He has taken on almost Spieth-like proportions in my mind for the gap between what I want him to accomplish and what he’s capable of, except replace Spieth’s gut-roiling volatility with Ludvig’s Sunday flops. We haven’t seen a golfer this likable since the golden child himself.
Bad Vibes: Is he me, back in my 20s when I had an office job I hated? Because this man’s got a chronic case of the Sunday Scaries.
Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell?: I want to say yes on pure skill, but until proven otherwise, I don’t believe in him under the gun.
• • •
13. J.J. Spaun
Good Vibes: He has a full and undisputed claim on the Rodney Dangerfield “I get no respect” gripe. Not only did we forget him right after he won the U.S. Open last year, but he’s playing some amazing golf the last two months, including a win in Texas, and we’re still not really talking about him. This guy could singlehandedly defeat a pack of invading aliens, and the top headline the next day would be, “Can Rory overcome his John Deere curse?”
Bad Vibes: I’ve been a constant on the “there really aren’t bad JJ vibes,” and I’m sticking with it.
Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell?: Yes, but also no—I’m falling into the “no respect” trap I just warned you about, but it’s still impossible for me to conceive of a world where Spaun wins back-to-back U.S. Opens.
• • •
12. Justin Thomas 
Ben Jared
Good Vibes: Nine straight made cuts, vaguely in contention at times, seems to be OK after his back surgery, everything just kinda mildly hunky dory, like an accountant from Iowa with two well-behaved children who enjoys tending his modest garden on weekends.
Bad Vibes: Careening toward a mid-life crisis if this too-steady trajectory continues, like an accountant from Iowa with two well-behaved children who enjoys tending his modest garden on weekends, but drains his family’s finances by buying hundreds of leather vests.
Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Barely more. We haven’t seen that extra gear that makes us believe yet.
• • •
11. Collin Morikawa/Xander Schauffele
Good Vibes: Whatever.
Bad Vibes: Whatever.
Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell?: Maybe, but I’m sick of writing about them in this halfway zone. Do something!
• • •
10. Sam Burns
Good Vibes: I guess he’s playing pretty well.
Bad Vibes: I really needed Sam Burns to post a high finish for a season-long pool I’m in this past weekend, and he finished double-par-bogey, so I’m trying as hard as I can not to let personal animus creep into this: We’ve come to pretty well understand what to expect from Burns on a Sunday when he’s close to the lead. It’s not terrible, per se, but it is “15 pars in a row followed by a double.”
Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell?: He’ll be in contention on Saturday night, then finish seventh.
• • •
9. Brooks Koepka 
David Cannon/Getty Images
Good Vibes: Felt, briefly, like he was picking up steam at the perfect time to head back to the site of his U.S. Open victory …
Bad Vibes: … and then he withdrew in Canada with a hand injury. Now we have no clue if he’s even going to play, and if he does play, he’s wayyyy more likely to WD again than to come close to winning. But what the hell, I’m nostalgic, let’s leave him in the top 10 for old time’s sake.
Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell?: Those of us who bore witness to Koepka the Killer in his heyday have a hard time believing it can’t happen again. We just hang out together, as a group, singing “Don’t Dream It’s Over” by Crowded House. It’s weird, but nice. But weird.
• • •
8. Tommy Fleetwood
Good Vibes: Very much lurking, in a good sense, like someone in a back alley who you think is a murderer, but actually they’re a vigilante waiting for the real murderer. Tommy Fleetwood is the Batman of finishing T-11.
Bad Vibes: Speaking of murder, brutally decapitated his own aura for a lot of us with that inexplicable Blackstone sponsorship. Because when you’re universally beloved in a sport where that’s almost impossible, the only move is to punt it for a few dollars.
Do they have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: In reality, 100 percent yes, but it’s one of those things that is technically possible but hard to envision.
• • •
7. Justin Rose 
J.D. Cuban
Good Vibes: A day after I broke down the stats to argue that his new McLaren irons were hurting him, he owned me by being one of the best in the field on SG: Approach at Aronimink. And to show how classy he is, he didn’t even rub it in, or read the piece, or have any idea who I am.
Bad Vibes: Is Rose the perfect comparison to the English soccer team? One massive win (’66 World Cup, 2013 U.S. Open), then just heartbreak after heartbreak after heartbreak, but with a recent renaissance that inspires hope for another great victory that will probably never come, and meanwhile he keeps losing the biggest tournaments on penalties/playoffs? I have to stop, I’m making myself sad.
Do they have a snowball’s chance in hell?: On merit, yes, although this feels like a course where his age might hurt him just that extra little bit.
• • •
6. Cameron Young
Good Vibes: His spring was so ridiculously good that I refuse to believe he has regressed this quickly, despite some shockingly mediocre play at the Memorial. I think it’s clear we need Chris Powers to write more stories about him attending Catholic Church, a proven good luck charm.
Bad Vibes: Needs to start going by “Cam.” A guy named “Cameron” can peak too early, but Cam? Cam hasn’t peaked. Cam hasn’t even begun to peak.
Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell?: Definitely, and this was the major I had penned him in for after he brought TPC Sawgrass to heel.
• • •
5. Matt Fitzpatrick (and sure, Alex too) 
Chris Graythen
Good Vibes: A nice little return to form at the Canadian Open with a solo second, perhaps because he felt at ease in a British colony.
Bad Vibes: Sometimes, with foreigners, I like to imagine how they’d do in a Cracker Barrel. I feel like Matt would really struggle. Alex could vibe with a Cracker Barrel. He’d be great in a Cracker Barrel. Matt would be gripping a bottle of hand sanitizer the way Alex Smalley grips the fork when it’s treat night and he’s earned half a sweet potato.
Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell?: Absolutely yes.
• • •
4. Jon Rahm
Good Vibes: Coming off a tidy little second-place finish at LIV Golf Andalucia, even though LIV is now entirely played in a group text between a dozen low-IQ Euro 50-year-olds who blew their chance to be a Ryder Cup captain.
Bad Vibes: The pervasive sense of unhappiness at LIV is thicker than ever, and if they manage to find a sucker sponsor to keep them afloat and thereby force Rahm to serve out his contract, he might fake his own death and move to Siberia. (Which, in a twist of irony, might be where all the LIV 2028 events are held.)
Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell?: Oh yeah. He seems like he’s close to cracking the riddle of how to win a major while playing minor league golf, and I can see him breaking through here or at Birkdale.
• • •
3. Tyrrell Hatton 
Hector Vivas
Good Vibes: He’s probably playing some of the best golf of his career right now, and to be serious for a moment, that’s another one of the mini-tragedies of LIV—entire primes are being lost to a circus, and guys like Hatton have four chances each year, at most, to parlay whatever they’ve found into actual recognition. And if they fail, like most of them do because of the heightened pressure and the lack of pressure reps, they’re forgotten. (Sorry, I watched the “Euphoria” finale just before writing this part and I’m depressed.)
Bad Vibes: Not many. Hatton’s going to be one of the guys who, unlike Rahm or Bryson but very much like Brooks, get out of this thing pretty much unscathed beyond the wasted time.
Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Yes, and I get the feeling he’s going to come close and give us at least one very entertaining profane rant.
• • •
2. Rory McIlroy
Good Vibes: Rory has been WAY too quiet lately, which makes me about 125 percent certain that something dramatic is going to happen with him soon. The man needs his attention. Now, could this manifest as him accidentally getting DQ’ed for having six putters in the bag, or robbing a liquor store in Long Island? Sure. But it could also mean he wins the U.S. Open.
Bad Vibes: Disturbing rumors have emerged in the last month of a “Shinnecock Banshee” that is seen only at night, playing the course obsessively, and the few souls brave enough to get close have heard it mutter the same eerie phrase to itself, over and over: “Nothing but majors, nothing but majors, nothing but majors … “
Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell?: Oh yes. Sets up beautifully for him.
• • •
1. Wyndham Clark 
Augusta National
Good Vibes: The rehabilitation tour is in full swing, and it’s coinciding with a stretch of absurdly torrid golf. The last time Wyndy got this hot, he won a U.S. Open, and it just so happens that Shinnecock, where big length and torrid putting are hot commodities, plays right into his hands.
Bad Vibes: As with many forces in modern life, like pointless war and big tech and people who do astrology, certain things are shoved down our throat with a cruel kind of inevitability, even though nobody wants them. Right now fate is holding a spoon with Wyndham Clark on the end, making airplane noises while the spoon comes closer and closer, and fate is cooing in our faces. “Open wide!”
Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Just accept it, Wyndham haters. Get reconciled now, and spare yourself the pain. He is guaranteed to win the U.S. Open. There is no man on earth who can prevent this from—
[Jackson Van Paris breaks through the wall like the Kool-Aid man]
“ONE OF Y’ALL CALL FOR A DANG HERO?”
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
