(This monthly feature takes a brief look at improving players who reached one of three thresholds in the last month: The player reached a career-high position in the Hawley Ratings top 50, or the player made his first career appearance in the top 200, or the player made his first appearance in the top 400.)

Top 50 and Career High

Gary Woodland — Seven-year Tour veteran Gary Woodland hit a career high of 17th in the Hawley Ratings on Feb. 26 when he tied for second in the Honda Classic. Woodland also was second in the OHL Classic at Mayakoba in November, in the fall portion of the current season, and has two other top-10s. The Kansas native and U. of Kansas grad has two career victories, the 2013 Reno-Tahoe and the 2011 Transitions. Woodland started out as a D2 scholarship basketball player at Washburn University prior to transferring to Kansas to focus on golf.

Francesco Molinari — Molinari has steadily been climbing the Hawley Ratings, hitting a career high of 18th on Feb. 12. It was a week during which he was idle and moved up when the guy immediately ahead of him dropped back a spot. He had his first missed cut since last summer in the Genesis butbounced right back with a 12th-place finish in the Honda. A year ago he was 54th. As recently as early November he was 27th. The 34-year-old is a native of Turin, Italy.

Brendan Steele — The seven-year PGA Tour pro Steele hit a career high of 25th in the ratings on Feb. 5 after a top-20 finish in the Waste Management Open. He’s 26th currently. The 33-year-old Californian won the first event of the current season, the Safeway Open in October. Steele won the Valero Texas Open in his rookie season of 2011 and has yet to surpass the $1.9 million in earnings that he had that season, although he is well on his way to doing so this year. He made the cut in eight straight events to start this season.

Tyrrell Hatton — Hatton started 2016 ranked 115th and ended it at a career high 46th. He hit another career high of 40th on Feb. 5 after finishing third in the Omega Dubai Desert Classic, then took another big step forward with a fourth-place tie in the Honda. Currently he is 36th. He was fifth and 10th in the last two majors, the British Open and PGA, respectively, then put together a nice fall season that started with the win in the Dunhill Links at St. Andrews, Scotland and a runner-up finish at Dubai. He’s a 25-year-old from Buckinghamshire, England, just northwest of London.

Rafael Cabrera-Bello – European team Ryder Cup member “Rafa” Grillo continued a gradual rise up the ratings when he reached no. 37 on Feb. 19. He was 11th in the January Omega Dubai event and then 34th in the Maybank Classic. He is a 32-year-old Spaniard who primarily plays the European Tour and appears in a handful of PGA Tour events. He had top-10 finishes in the Match Play and Olympics plus two regular PGA Tour events in 2016. He’s ranked 39th currently.

First Appearance in the Top 200

CT Pan — PGA Tour rookie Cheng-tsung “CT” Pan is a 25-year-old from Taiwan. He’s been erratic but a quick riser in the ratings, achieving a rank of 128th on Feb. 26 after a top-40 finish in the Honda Classic. The highlight of his 2017 season was sharing the runner-up spot in the Farmers, however he has missed the cut in all four of his other 2017 appearances. He played at the U. of Washington and was the no. 1-ranked amateur of the world for part of 2013.

Kelly Kraft — The 28-year-old Texan had by far the best finish of his career when he was runner-up to Jordan Spieth in the Pebble Beach Pro-Am in mid-February. It was enough to jump him up over 60 places in the ratings to 158th. He missed the cut the following week and currently is 181st in the ratings. Kraft, holding a PGA Tour card for the second year, had one top-10 as a rookie, a fifth in the John Deere Classic. He played collegiately at SMU.

J.T. Poston — Poston, 23, is a North Carolina native and Western Carolina alum who is another PGA Tour rookie making a name for himself in 2017. He is 166th in the rankings as of Feb. 26 based on a top-30 finish in the Honda. Poston began 2016 with no status but Monday-qualified into the Web.com Tour United Leasing & Finance Championship, finished top-25 to qualify for the Rex Hospital Open, finished third there, and eventually finished 10th in Web.com money. He made three of five cuts in the fall portion of the Tour with a best finish of 29th in the Sanderson Farms.

First Appearance in the Top 400

Thomas Detry — It’s been a good month for Belgian golfers. In the same week as fellow Belgian Thomas Pieters finished a surprising second in the PGA Tour Genesis Open, Detry made his first appearance in the Hawley Ratings at no. 271 after advancing to the first match-play round in the ISPS HANDA World Super 6 event. Like Pieters, Detry played for the University of Illinois. He had a finish in the top 30 at Qatar a few weeks earlier.

Pep Angles — Angles is no. 275 in the rankings on Feb. 26 on the occasion of appearing in his eighth qualifying event. Angles is a 23-year-old from Barcelona who is a rookie on the Euro Tour, having graduated from the Challenge Tour. His two most recent finishes, 16th in the Joburg Open and in round 2 of the World Super 6 Perth, boosted him into the ratings. He played collegiately in the U.S. at Central Arkansas.

Shubhankar Sharma — Sharma is a 20-year-old Indian who has been receiving attention for his golf skills since around the age of 10. He played the Indian Open at age 18 and entered the Hawley Ratings at no. 301 on Feb. 14 after a ninth-place finish in the Maybank Championship in Kuala Lumpur. In 2016, he had top-five finishes on the Asian Tour in Bangladesh and Manila.

Daniel Fox — Daniel Fox is a 27-year-old Australian who appeared in the ratings at no. 350 on Feb. 19. He made it after advancing to the first match-play round in the ISPS HANDA World Super 6 event. He’s been playing minor tours for a few years, and the Super 6 was his eighth appearance in a rated event.

Phachara Khongwatmai — Talk about young! Phachara Khongwatmai is a 17-year-old Thai who first appeared in a $1-million event as a 15-year-old. He made his first appearance in the Hawley Ratings top 400 on Feb. 14 by finishing 20th in the Euro Tour Maybank Championship event. Then he showed it was not a fluke by finishing second in the mixed medal/ match ISPS HANDA World Super 6 event in Perth the next week.