The 2024 PGA Tour season was laced with players exceeding expectations, including some like Xander Schauffele who thrived well beyond even his loftiest hopes for the campaign. In act, the story of the year was Schaufele and more so Scottie Scheffler surpassing even the most optimistic views of how their years would play out.
On the flip side, though, are several golfers who did not live up to expectations for how 2024 might look once the season concluded. Whether they fell short of a winning total or saw their strokes gained achievements depreciate year over year, there were multiple players who took a step backward on the golf course -- for one reason or another.
That does not mean there is no rebounding for these players. Everyone goes through lulls in their careers. Some, like Jordan Spieth, have been beset with injury. Spieth recently completed long-needed wrist surgery and expects to be fine in 2025. Stuff happens, including dips in play, and we see golfers rebound from prior struggles every year.
In fact, most of these players should rebound in 2025, but again, looking only at the past season, here are five who did not thrive as expected.
Golfers who failed to meet expectations in 2024
Jordan Spieth: After a top-five finish at The Sentry, it looked like the boy was back on track. Instead, that ended up being his best finish of the year and one of just three top 10s he had all season. It was rough to watch Spieth's iron play, normally the bread and butter of his game It was, frankly, terrible. He ended the year losing strokes on approach play, one of just two times that has happened since he turned pro. Obviously the aforementioned injured wrist played a role in his declining game, so hopefully the bounce back in 2025 puts him in the "exceeded expectations" category.
Tom Kim: He's in the difficult position of setting extremely high expectations early in his career -- by winning a lot -- but not necessarily having the skill set to back it up. The year as a whole was not a huge disappointment, but failing to advance past the first round of the FedEx Cup Playoffs stings. His short game was bad this year compared to where it normally resides, and he just does not have the firepower to make up for that right now. Kim requires every part of his game to be operating at close to its apex for him to play at the level of a top 15 or 20 player in the world.
Max Homa: It felt like one could see the trajectory. Ryder Cup heroics followed by Masters contention followed by, well, anything was possible. But the post-Masters dip was bad. He had just one top 10 the rest of the season and posted by far the worst driving year of his career losing 0.2 strokes per round off the tee after consistently putting up +0.4 seasons for the last five years. It's something he'll need to figure out this offseason if he hopes to return to top 10 form in 2025.
Matt Fitzpatrick: One of my favorite Fitzpatrick stats is that, in nine of 10 seasons concluding in 2022, he improved his strokes-gained number year over year. That is incredibly difficult to do -- almost nobody achieves it -- but his trajectory kept going up and to the right. He peaked in 2022, though, and has fallen off in each of the last two years. This year was his worst since 2018, statistically, as he put together just three top 10s. There is likely some injury stuff going on with him as well, but since winning the 2022 U.S. Open at Brookline, he has struggled to met the new bar he set for himself.
Rickie Fowler: Following a win toward the end of last year, Fowler fell off in a big way in 2024. He did not have a top 15 and only notched one top 20. He was a below average PGA Tour player statistically and put up his worst numbers overall since 2008. That's a curious development given how well he played at times in 2023, and it's something to watch out for going into next season. As he enters his age 37 (!) season, how much is left in the tank for the five-time Ryder Cupper?
