Top 10: Comeback players for 2020-21

They’ve hit some of the highest highs in the game, but these 10 players came back down to earth last season. Now they’re poised to potentially rise again in 2020-21.

Note: This is a subjective list; there is no science. Most of these players, though, have shown the ability to go on a hot streak and therefore seem especially worth watching.

Here are the 10:

Tiger Woods

“I haven't put all the pieces together at the same time,” Woods, who will turn 45 later this month, said before the recent Masters Tournament at Augusta National, where he finished T38.

He obviously didn’t put all the pieces together there, either, but while his final-round 76 featured a 10 at the par-3 12th hole, his three water balls leading to the highest single-hole score of his career, he dusted himself off and birdied five of his last six holes.

Yep. Tiger has more in the tank.

Let’s call the 2020 calendar year, when Woods had just one top-10 finish (T9, Farmers Insurance Open), a recovery period. And face it: After his epic 2019, Woods deserved it.

He skipped the 2020 Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, on a course where he’s won eight times; missed The Honda Classic, his hometown tournament; and never came to TPC Sawgrass for THE PLAYERS Championship, which he’s won twice.

Then came the pandemic.

Trying to be safe, he was hesitant to come back, and was rusty when he finally did. He finished T72 in his title defense at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD and missed the cut at the U.S. Open at Winged Foot. He never really contended at the Masters.

Still, Woods showed glimpses of his old self at Augusta, mostly with how he finished Sunday. He will partner up with son Charlie at the unofficial PNC Championship in Orlando later this month.

Woods still wants to play, still has birdies in him, and assuming his body gives him a few more mostly pain-free stretches of golf, might yet have that record-breaking 83rd victory in him in 2021.

Rory McIlroy

McIlroy is the only player on this list who didn’t have a bad 2020; he just had a blah nine months. He began last season with six straight top-five finishes, including a win at the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions. Then came the cancellation of THE PLAYERS Championship in March, after which he wasn’t the same player.

From the TOUR’s return in June to the beginning of the TOUR Championship in early September, he had zero top-10 finishes and just two top-15 efforts, a T11 at the Travelers Championship and T12 at the BMW Championship.

Too many mistakes, he explained more than once. He was having trouble focusing, he added.

It turned out there was more going on than anyone knew. McIlroy and his wife Erica were awaiting the birth of their first child, although they managed to keep it a secret almost up to the day their daughter Poppy was born just prior to the start of the TOUR Championship.

Since then, McIlroy has racked up top-10 finishes at East Lake (T8), the U.S. Open (T8) and the Masters (T5). He still hasn’t won since the WGC-HSBC 13 months ago, but with his life having settled down and his game coming around again, one senses it won’t be long.

Zach Johnson

Johnson, 44, is a 12-time TOUR winner who finished sixth in the FedExCup in ’15. He advanced to the BMW Championship and finished in the top 60 in each of the next three seasons.

Alas, he has struggled the last two seasons. Johnson fell to 154th and missed the Playoffs in ’19. Last season he had just one top-10 (Wyndham Championship, seventh), missed the BMW and finished 105th in the FedExCup. One culprit: his driving (131st in Strokes Gained: Off-the-tee).

Lately, though, things have been looking up. Johnson was T8 at the U.S. Open at Winged Foot, where he led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting. And he’s coming off a T6 finish at The RSM Classic, his hometown tournament. He has made eight straight cuts dating back to last season.

Johnson is still world-class on the greens (currently 15th on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Putting), so a return to form with the driver might just send him back to the winner’s circle like his pal ...

Stewart Cink

A distant 144th in the FedExCup last season and 179th in 2019, Cink, 47, is third in the standings so far this season after a win at the season-opening Safeway Open and top finishes at the Sanderson Farms Championship (T12) and Bermuda Championship (T4).

Who could have predicted that?

“I've made some changes in my game the last month or so,” he said at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, where he opened 67-63 but faded on Sunday (T64). “It paid off really quickly with a win, and now it's just fun to get out there and wail on the driver and see the shots.”

One change has been to have his son, Reagan, caddie. They worked side-by-side at the Safeway, which marked Cink’s first victory since the 2009 Open Championship, a span of 4,074 days. Now the challenge is to keep it going, which Cink has proven capable of doing. He won twice on TOUR in 2004, and three times on the Korn Ferry Tour in 1996.

The golf ball doesn’t know how old you are.

Justin Rose

FedExCup winner. World No. 1.

Some of Justin Rose’s career highs were stratospheric, and recent (2018).

Last season, though, was a dud. After making equipment and coaching changes, Rose missed seven cuts in 13 starts, failed to advance to the BMW Championship for the first time since 2008, and fell to 91st in the FedExCup. His T3 when the PGA TOUR returned at the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial, where he won in 2018, was a rare bright spot.

“I feel like I'm at 60 percent,” Rose said at the Masters, where he finished T23. “… I have a plan of what I'm trying to work on, and yeah, just got to be patient with it, but it's coming.”

To return to the player who recorded 11 top-10 finishes in his FedExCup-winning season of 2018, Rose, 40, may have to tighten up his short game. He was in negative numbers in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green (137th) and SG: Putting (110th) last season.

This, after he ranked in the top 25 in both of those categories two years ago.

Jason Day

Day has been busy since he reached world No. 1 with eight PGA TOUR wins in 2015 and ’16.

He made a caddie change (2017) and coaching change (last summer), in both instances splitting with Col Swatton, who took him from golf boarding school in Australia to 12 TOUR wins. Day and wife Ellie have grown their family to include three children. He has fought back pain and uneven results, with his last victory coming at the 2018 Wells Fargo Championship.

Day finished 57th in the FedExCup last season, his worst since 2012. It was also the second straight year in which he’s missed the TOUR Championship. His putting has slipped.

Four straight top-10 finishes in July and August, though, including a T4 at the PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park, may have reignited something. Day, 33, also is optimistic after altering his swing to protect his back.

“I finally had enough of feeling sorry for myself,” he said at the PGA. “It's easy to do that in this game because it is so mentally tough. You can start blaming everything else but yourself. Sometimes you've just got to pull your pants up and just move on, you know.”

Brooks Koepka

After struggling with injuries to his knee and hip for much of 2020, and recording just two top-10 finishes last season, Koepka finished T5 at the Vivint Houston Open and T7 at the Masters.

If he really is healthy again – and he says he is – it’s been a long time coming.

Koepka underwent stem cell treatment on his left knee in 2019 and returned at THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES. Alas, he slipped on wet concrete, re-injuring the tendon. Unable to shift his weight, he overburdened his hip and tore his labrum at the PGA Championship (T29) in August. Back to the drawing board. He skipped the FedExCup Playoffs and U.S. Open for more rehab, including more stem cell therapy on his left knee and a cortisone injection in his hip.

He returned for the 2020-21 season at THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK in mid-October.

“Just nice to be back playing,” he said after his first competitive round in two months.

Good health suggests good things ahead for one of the TOUR’s biggest talents.

Rickie Fowler

Fowler is languishing at 127th in the FedExCup, and last season failed to advance to the BMW Championship for the first time in his career, ultimately finishing 94th. The five-time TOUR winner, including his thrilling 2015 PLAYERS Championship win, is in uncharted territory.

“It's definitely been very tough mentally just trying to keep pushing forward,” Fowler said at October’s Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, where he missed the cut.

Long story short: His recent swing change just hasn’t taken yet.

Although he’s seen flashes of form – T5 at the Sentry Tournament of Champions, T10 at The American Express – Fowler hasn’t turned the corner with coach John Tillery. And when he has played well for a round or two, he’s let himself down on the greens. Hard to believe he ranks 178th in Strokes Gained: Putting, given that he was 13th in that stat as recently as 2019.

Fowler says he’ll come out of this.

“I don't have any doubt,” he said at the Shriners, “that we'll be right back where we want to, in contention, and having chances to win more tournaments, and especially majors.”

Sergio Garcia

When he came to the Sanderson Farms Championship in October, Garcia hadn’t won since the 2017 Masters. He’d fallen out of the world top 50, and had just missed the FedExCup Playoffs for just the second time in his career. The green jacket, it seemed, had been his last hurrah.

So very few saw it coming when Garcia birdied the 72nd hole to edge Peter Malnati and win the Sanderson Farms. Now an 11-time TOUR winner, Garcia, 40, is still flying under the radar after missing the recent Masters with the coronavirus. He is also getting quite good at putting with his eyes closed, a method he’d been using on and off for years to get the flinch out of his stroke.

“You've got to go with it and trust it, believe it,” he said at the Sanderson Farms, “and you might have a week here and there where you don't putt as well, but I think that I'm at the point where I need to. I talked to my wife, to Angela, and we talked about it, and I have to stick to something and go with it no matter what. I'm in a stage of my career where I can't be jumping back and forth too much because then I get no rhythm whatsoever.”

With his stroke back and his 40s ahead, Garcia may just keep that rhythm going a while longer.

Tommy Fleetwood

He’s a global superstar at 29, and not so long ago shot a final-round 63 to finish second at the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills (2018); racked up six top-10s on the season (2019); and fought all the way to the end before bungling the 18th hole for a solo third at The Honda Classic (2020).

Then came the pandemic.

“I never spent four months sleeping in the same bed all at once for a very, very long time,” he said when he returned relatively late, at the 3M Open in July. “That part of it's been great.”

It was the waking up part that was hard. He missed the cut by three in Minneapolis, missed the TOUR Championship for the first time, and finished 92nd in the FedExCup.

Lately, though, he’s been showing signs of life, especially in Europe. After admittedly being off his game in America, he finished T3 at the Portugal Masters, second at the Scottish Open, and T13 at the BMW PGA Championship in October, the European Tour’s flagship event.

Imbued with at least a modicum of confidence, he returned to the States and finished T19 at the Masters, a promising effort that was marred only by a final-round 74.

“I came home from America, was struggling,” Fleetwood said. “Got back to work, and I've played – feel like my game has been progressing really, really well and I'm playing some really good stuff.”

The guess here is that there’s more good stuff to come in 2021.