Zac Blair

Blair returned to the PGA Tour last season on a medical exemption following a nearly two-year absence after undergoing shoulder surgery, and he did enough to regain his card, highlighted by a T-2 finish at a designated event. He is one of the shortest hitters on Tour (190th out of 193 players in driving distance last season), which puts him at a significant disadvantage at many of the longer venues. As a result, Blair has to rely on getting hot with his irons and short game, which are all average. His ceiling is thus limited and staying inside the top-125 on a yearly basis will be a battle.

As one of the shortest hitters, barely average 280 off the tee, it's a marvel Blair does as well as he does. He had four top-25s, one of which was a top-5 at the Safeway, but his upside will always be limited by his length. He made 12 of 22 cuts last season.

Blair went back to the drawing board after finishing outside of the top-100 in the FedEx Cup standings in four consecutive seasons from 2015-2018. Back-to-back top-10s at the Korn Ferry Tour's Pinnacle Bank Championship and Price Cutter Charity Championship in late July would foreshadow a win at the Ellie Mae Classic where Blair posted a 65.75 scoring average and locked up his PGA Tour card for the 2019-20 campaign in the process. He ultimately finished 12th on the KFT's Regular Season Points List and nearly led the entire Tour in driving accuracy. Blair is short off the tee, but he ranked 15th in both GIR percentage and putting average among his peers.

After regressing in the two seasons following his promising rookie campaign Blair finds himself at a crossroads for 2017-18 season as the first man outside the top-125 FedEx Cup points bubble. As such, Blair will definitely need to maximize his limited opportunities this upcoming season with conditional status. Blair's game is characterized by strong driving accuracy and a good short game, so look for him to capitalize on courses that place a premium on these aspects, especially when the field strength is diluted. From what he's shown in his early career his upside seems to be capped, but he's good enough to post at least a couple top-10s to slip inside the top 125.

It's not uncommon for a golfer to regress after a solid rookie season as Zac Blair did last year. What is uncommon is to regress within that sophomore season. Blair started last season fairly well with a top-10 at the Mayakoba and a solo-3rd at the Sony Open, but after that, there was little to write home about. In fact, Blair failed to crack the top-50 in his final nine events. Blair certainly could improve this season, an optimist would point-out that he's successfully secured his card in his first two seasons, but there doesn't appear to be a whole lot of upside at this point. In draft leagues, he should go after the 10th-round.

What Zac Blair did in the past month is utterly sensational. Graduating from BYU earlier this year with a degree in Recreation Management, Blair qualified for the U.S. Open, tying for 40th. He didn’t play his first Web.com Tour event until July, but made enough money in basically a two month timeframe to qualify for the Web.com Tour Finals (a T2 at the Price Cutter Charity Championship presented by Dr Pepper certainly helped). But then his game hit a cold snap and he missed the cut in the first three Finals events, shooting no rounds in the 60s, before turning it ON at the Web.com Tour Championship, opening with 63-65 and ending up finishing solo second. That all adds up to an eighth place starting spot on the Reshuffle List and a ton of positive vibes heading into the Frys.com Open in two weeks.