Xander Schauffele, Tony Finau, Rickie Fowler among PGA Tour’s biggest ball speed gainers, losers in 2024

Cameron Champ is the fastest man on the PGA Tour in 2024. Not with his speed of play, per se — that honor might belong to Ludvig Åberg — but with his golf ball. For the sixth straight season, the three-time PGA Tour winner topped the list with an average ball speed of 190.41 mph off the tee — up slightly from his 2023 figure and well ahead of the Tour’s average of 173.73 mph.

Champ wasn’t the only player to increase his swing speed; most of his long drives became longer.

Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele are the two biggest names to have made huge strides in the ball speed department. While McIlroy has been one of the longest-serving players in his career, Schauffele’s rise has been more gradual.

“He’s been trying to pick up the pace but he’s been doing it very methodically, very quietly, very in the shadows,” Jordan Spieth said of Schauffele. “It’s been great to see him go after tournament rounds — like Thursday, Friday, Saturday — and he’ll go to the practice trailer and do a hard workout after the round. That’s not common here. There are a few guys who will do it, but it’s still not common. Everyone’s forecourting now; 10, 12 years ago, half the guys were forecourting, now everyone’s forecourting.

“But he’s going after it and doing these heavy practices with a goal in mind that he thinks is going to give him a little bit of an edge. He’s got a lot of speed, and he’s doing it while still maintaining his consistency and his short game, and that just allows him to hit shorter clubs into the green, maybe over the course of four rounds, just one or two shots. The way he patiently approaches that is really inspiring.”

Schauffele’s work ethic helped produce one of the greatest major championship seasons in the history of the game. Finishing in the top 10 at all four major championships — including the PGA Championship and the Open — Schauffele’s speed certainly contributed to his success.

Schauffele has never been slow; he’s consistently ranked around 35th on the PGA Tour. But he’s never been as fast as his peers. Climbing into the top 10 in ball speed this season, the two-time major champion is just one of many players with killer speed.

Significantly increased ball speed (mph)

Schauffele has increased his ball speed by 10 mph over the past five years, with his biggest jump this season thanks to a new practice regimen and more efficient action from hitting coach Chris Como. He’s 3 mph faster than the likes of Åberg and Byeong Hun An and 5 mph faster than Keith Mitchell.

Meanwhile, there are players like Tony Finau who always have more fuel in the tank if needed; he regularly hits 200 mph at home. Finau has increased his ball speed by nearly 5 mph this year alone, but interestingly, he had the worst season of his career as wide misses became more common throughout his 2024 campaign. Will he scale back in 2025 or continue to let it explode?

Taylor Pendrith has returned to full health after battling a shoulder injury and had one of the most underrated back rounds of the year, while Justin Thomas finds himself in the same boat as Finau. Long and loaded with firepower, the American’s drive figures are about half of what they were in 2017-22 when he was consistently winning.

The most significant results may have been for Stephan Jaeger. At 35, the German has worked his way up from 97th to 72nd to 51st on the PGA Tour in ball speed over the past three seasons. The payoff came last spring in Houston, when he outhit and outplayed the best player in the world en route to his first career PGA Tour victory.

Significant loss of ball speed (mph)

The Cameron Young case continues this year, as the talented right-hander has gone another PGA Tour season without making it to the winner’s circle. It wasn’t without opportunity, as he played at the Valspar Championship and the Rocket Mortgage Classic; in the latter, he accidentally broke his putter in frustration during the final round.

Since graduating from the Korn Ferry Tour, the Bronx Bomber has become one of the longest-hitting players on the PGA Tour, ranking in the top five in ball speed in his first two seasons. He’s dropped to 12th and had his worst season in 2024. The skill set that could separate him from his peers, Young’s length (and lack of accuracy), is something to watch next year.

On the other hand, it wasn’t all bad for those who lost some ball speed last season. In fact, 44-year-old Adam Scott enjoyed a resurgence, finishing T4 at the Tour Championship and finishing the year with five consecutive top-20s. The Australian had his best season since 2020 and his best finish since 2018.

Hovland’s struggles have been public for some time. The drop in ball speed is noticeable, but it could be due to addressing some mechanical aspects of the golf swing. When he gets it right, he’s fine, and so is Denny McCarthy.

Having struggled with a torn labrum in his hip, the putting master will be aiming to get healthy this season and continue his upward trend in the ball-striking department. He has now improved his irons for three straight seasons, but McCarthy’s 2024 marked his worst off-the-ball season yet, with not only no distance but also no accuracy (by his standards).

That leaves Rickie Fowler, who had perhaps his most disappointing season on the PGA Tour. After struggling and trying to return to relevance — winning again, making it to the major championships, playing in the Ryder Cup — throughout the 2023 campaign, the 35-year-old has disappeared from the map in 2024.

This was Fowler’s worst season of his career (yes, worse than 2022) and his worst off the tee. Fowler has never been lower than his peers, dropping 3 mph below the PGA Tour average year over year. His form over the past few years has many wondering if his 2023 success is an outlier rather than the other way around.