Tom Hoge

Hoge was mostly a fringe player his first few seasons on Tour, but after making the BMW Championship each of the last two seasons, the 33-year-old stepped things up in a big way in 2021-22. Hoge was able to breakthrough for his first victory at Pebble Beach with a furious back-nine run to beat out Jordan Spieth. That combined with three other top-five finishes was enough for Hoge to make it all the way to the Tour Championship. He's not an easy player to project considering he also had a stretch of six straight events in which he missed the cut and missed 13 total last season. Hoge did rank 11th in SG: Approach and 16th in scrambling, which are two things that should help him on difficult golf courses.

Hoge missed 9-of-13 cuts to close out a disappointing finish to the season that included only one top-40 finish. It's difficult to be too optimistic about his prospects headed into this season as a short hitter who lost strokes in 3-of-4 categories. Expect to see him on the outside looking in for the playoffs this season unless he can catch fire one week as a longshot winner.

Immediately upon retaining his PGA Tour card via the KFT Finals last summer, Hoge kickstarted his 2019-20 campaign by earning solo runner-up honors at the Greenbrier in September. He then enjoyed a streak of four top-25s from the Sony Open through the Waste Management Phoenix Open. This stretch also included top-6s at the American Express and Farmers Insurance Open. Hoge ultimately advanced to the BMW Championship for the first time in his career at 31-years old, but he missed the cut in six of his last 11 starts to end the season 50th in the FedEx Cup standings.

After struggling to retain his card during his first three seasons on the PGA Tour, Hoge had a breakthrough season in 2017-18, when he cleared more than $1.3 million and finished 80th on the FedEx list. Last season, however, Hoge regressed to his previous form and again battled the entire season to get into the top 125, which he failed to do. He got his card back via the Korn Ferry Tour Finals. He has shown some upside, but he's also shown just average ability in four of five seasons on the PGA Tour.

Hoge's first three seasons on the PGA Tour were a complete grind. He failed to crack the top-125 in any of those three seasons and he topped-out at $690k in earnings in 2015. The two seasons following his rookie season of 2015 saw a decline in his overall numbers, but last season he bounced-back and set a career-high in earnings. That career-high in earnings was due in large part to a solo-third at the Sony Open in January. The problem is, that 3rd-place finish was his only top-10 last season. Hoge has every right to improve again this season, but you don't want to bet on a guy who might get better. With a floor well below his price tag and a ceiling that doesn't look much higher than $1 million, Hoge is not a good salary cap option this season.

Hoge has now failed to finish top-125 in the FedExCup standings for three consecutive years, but earned his PGA Tour card back for the upcoming 2017-18 season thanks to a top-25 performance in the Web.com Tour Finals. This past season he struggled mightily off the tee, ranking outside of the top-150 in both driving distance and driving accuracy. He'll look to improve upon his 10 made cuts throughout his 2017-18 campaign.

Hoge had two top-10s, T9s at RSM and Valero, but 12 missed cuts in 26 starts doomed any realistic chance to keep his PGA Tour card for 2016-17. Out of the conditional category he'll get some starts here and a lot on the Web.com Tour, and a chance to fix all aspects of his game. His strokes gained-total ranking was a poor 147th.

Hoge used the Web.com Tour Finals to seal his card for the 2014-2015 PGA Tour season after failing to get a top-10 finish on the Web.com Tour until July and having no top-5 finish until his third at the Chiquita Classic, the second Finals event. Overall he went T53-3-T22-T52 over the four Finals events, and will look to take that momentum into the fall. On the flipside, he’s not overly impressive statistically, and the lack of a top-10 for the first half of the Web.com Tour season could spell trouble on the big stage. Fantasy owners need to be patient and see how Hoge plays.