WOW: Denny McCarthy is Closing in on a PGA TOUR Record

Typically, when you start talking about PGA TOUR records, you expect them to be broken by some of the best players in the game. But there’s a surprising player that’s on the verge of claiming an incredibly impressive record.

For those who aren’t paying super close attention to the game, you probably haven’t heard Denny McCarthy’s name all that often. He’s only been on the PGA TOUR since the 2018 season after coming out of the University of Virginia and tearing it up for two years on the Web.com Tour. But even without a lot of experience or wins on the top circuit, McCarthy is closing in on some impressive history.
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The strongest part of McCarthy’s game is definitely his putting. While that hasn’t translated to any wins or consistent play of any sort, the putting has been so impressive that his SG: Putting rating is off the charts. On the SG stat, McCarthy led the entire PGA TOUR with 0.988 strokes gained on the greens. That’s the second-best rating in the ShotLink era, only falling behind Jason Day’s 1.13 strokes gained back in 2016.

Even more impressive for McCarthy is that this is the second straight year he’s held the crown for the most shots gained on the greens. Last season, he led the field with .926 strokes gained and now he’s going to look to repeat that for the third straight year, a feat that has only been accomplished by two other players.

Luke Donald is the last player to have led the PGA TOUR in this stat three years in a row, dating back to 2009-2011.

If McCarthy wants to join the exclusive club, however, he’s going to have to step it up for the rest of this year. Ever since the FedExCup, McCarthy has taken a bit of a step back, as he only sits at 86th in the early stages of the season. But McCarthy has never finished outside the top 20 in the SG: Putting stat so if the trend holds true, he’ll be back up there in no time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Denny McCarthy (@mccarthy_denny) on Aug 16, 2020 at 4:54pm PDT

For someone like McCarthy, that’s going to be a good little bit of motivation moving forward throughout the season. And if he can keep that up and work on the weaker aspects of his game, maybe we’ll see him pick up his first PGA TOUR victory this season.

Cover Image via Instagram