The last time we dug into Jordan Spieth’s putting statistics for the current PGA Tour season was 11 weeks ago. Repeating, for the season ending with the 2017 Tour Championship, he ranked second on the PGA Tour in putts per green-in-regulation and 42nd in strokes gained putting. This season’s stats show him 126th in putts per GIR, down from 109th in mid-March, and 190th in strokes gained putting, down from 163rd. That’s the bottom half in putts per GIR and the bottom one-tenth of PGA pros in strokes gained putting, going the wrong way since March and an enormous plunge since last season.

Nevertheless, Spieth is second on the Tour in strokes gained tee-to-green, second in GIR percentage, seventh in birdie average, 29th in money, and 31st in FedEx Cup points. Most importantly, he is hanging in there at fourth in the Hawley Ratings (third in the Official World Golf Ratings). Obviously he is doing more than enough to remain competitive, and he is the Hawley Ratings favorite this week in the sponsor-less Fort Worth Invitational at the Colonial Country Club in his home state of Texas.

Focusing on recent results, Spieth was third in back-to-back events in March (Houston and the Masters), and since then has a missed cut, was 41st at TPC, and 21st at the Nelson. The field, as usual, is respectable in this event, with players including four others from the Hawley top 10 – Patrick Cantlay, Rickie Fowler, Jon Rahm, and Justin Rose – and 18 others from the top 50. Despite his putting issues, Spieth is one of the top 10 players in the field in fit for the course per the Hawley course fit statistics. Over the last eight years, GIR has been by far the statistic that correlated most highly with success on the course, with driving accuracy and sand saves also correlated. The top four in matching their statistical profile with the key stats are Fowler, Emiliano Grillo, Shubhankar Sharma, and Justin Rose. Sharma, from India, has won twice internationally within the last year and is in on a sponsor exemption.

If you’re looking for a pick, you might want to consider Charl Schwartzel, Jimmy Walker (Texan), Chesson Hadley, or Bryson DeChambeau, all playing well recently and with rising ratings. Excluding the big names, players who appear to be improving recently include Joel Dahmen, Greg Chalmers, Ted Potter, and Satoshi Kodaira.

This should be the event’s last year without a title sponsor for a few years. Charles Schwab & Co., which has a long association with the Tour, will assume title sponsorship of the event from 2019 to 2022, per an announcement last month. Recent sponsors were Dean & Deluca thru last year and Crowne Plaza thru 2015.

The first slot in the Hawley Ratings will be on the line in Europe for a change this week. The BMW PGA Championship at the Wentworth Club in Virginia Water, England, south of London, has attracted no. 1 Paul Casey and a strong supporting cast. Also among the top 25 players in the world and appearing at Wentworth are Tommy Fleetwood, Rory McIlroy, Francesco Molinari, and Alex Noren.

Casey and Dustin Johnson have been back-and-forth between the first and second slots in the ratings for the last two months, trading places three times. Both are among the top six players in the world based on their play over the last five months. They are tight enough at the top of the ratings for the lead to change any time either one plays.

Fleetwood has been a steady riser in the ratings for months now. He was 49th at the end of 2017 and has hit a new personal high in the ratings eight times in 2018. He has 11 appearances this year, two in Euro Tour events; he won in Abu Dhabi, was in the top 10 four other times, and hit the top 20 three additional times. His perfect record of made cuts in 2018 ended with a blah showing in the Wells Fargo earlier this month.

Two guys with too few appearances to qualify for the Hawley Ratings but showing hints of ability are Joaquin Niemann and TJ Vogel. Niemann would be just outside the top 100 with his current number of 491 if he had eight appearances instead of his six. The Chilean was the no. 1 amateur in the world for nearly a year until turning pro last month. His six Tour appearances all come since last year’s U.S. Open. He missed the cut in four of them but was in the top 30 at last year’s Greenbrier and in the top 10 at the Valero Texas Open a month ago.

Vogel has appeared in five events, all since last fall’s RSM, and has Monday-qualified in each case. As reported at golf.com, no player gained entry to more than three PGA Tour events in 2017 via the Monday qualifier route, yet Vogel has done it five times thru May this season. He made the top 20 at the Valspar and survived the cut at the recent Wells Fargo. He’d be ranked in the 160s if his rating number was based on eight events instead of five.