Why Chris Gotterup Is the Hottest Player on the PGA Tour Right Now

The hottest player on the PGA Tour in this early portion of the season isn’t Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele or Viktor Hovland. It isn’t one of the young up-and-comers who made ripples in seasons past like Jake Knapp or Sahith Theegala.

It’s a 26-year-old long driver from the Jersey Shore who tweets the “Tell ’em to bring me my money” meme every time he wins.

Golf fans, you better learn the name Chris Gotterup now, because he’s not waiting for everyone to board his bandwagon.

Gotterup has won two of his three starts in 2026 — the Sony Open in Hawaii and the WM Phoenix Open — doubling his career title total to four and rocketing to No. 5 in the world rankings.

In a sport dominated by Scheffler and Rory McIlroy in recent years, new blood is refreshing. It’s even more captivating that golf’s next shooting star didn’t come out of one of the typical factories in Texas or Southern California that churn out polished golf robots.

Golf Twitter has a few natural comedians like Max Homa and resident golf nerds like Michael Kim, but they’re few and far between. Gotterup’s easygoing disposition shines through not just online, but on the course. He doesn’t fasten his glove, and a gold necklace peeks out from his polo.

I interviewed Gotterup and his former coach at Rutgers back in 2022. His coach told me Gotterup was a bit underrecruited in high school, and Rutgers made a successful push to keep him home. Gotterup said he dropped 50 pounds as a sophomore, unlocking even more from his massive swing.

During a grad season at Oklahoma, Gotterup won two national awards for collegiate golfer of the year and had already flashed at PGA Tour events. So his rise wasn’t entirely out of nowhere — at least not to those paying close attention.

But he truly grabbed the spotlight when he won the Scottish Open last July, fending off Rory McIlroy head-to-head. He followed that by contending at the Open Championship the very next week and finishing third.

What this year has shown is that Gotterup has evolved from a pure bomber into a far more complete player. His average round in 2026 is 67.42. He remains one of the longest drivers on Tour (327.9 yards), but he’s also gaining strokes on approach and around the green. His putting isn’t elite, but it’s comfortably above average.

Let’s be clear: Hideki Matsuyama handed him the Phoenix Open last Sunday. Matsuyama couldn’t find a fairway down the stretch, and it finally cost him with a bogey at No. 18 when a par would have sealed the win. Instead, it went to a playoff, and the rowdy TPC Scottsdale crowd was fully behind Gotterup by that point.

“It’s just a crazy atmosphere, and you just have to embrace it this week, and I felt like I did a good job of that,” Gotterup said.

The past three locales where Gotterup has won — Scotland, Hawaii and Arizona — couldn’t be more different. I wouldn’t guarantee he’ll lap the field at this week’s signature event, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, but his game is clearly traveling well.

Not bad for a young dude from New Jersey.

“I think it’s a place that has a lot of pride in everything,” Gotterup said. “I know for sure that when I go home, a lot of people I don’t even know care about what I’m doing because we share the same town or the same area, or we played the same course growing up. It’s something I take pride in and want to represent that area of the country well.”