The golfer who won on the PGA Tour at 20, joined LIV Golf, and hasn’t won since

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Golf’s seen its fair share of young players who made early headlines before fading away, and it’s a pattern that doesn’t seem to go away.

The demands of the PGA Tour and the hype around being billed as golf’s next big thing can affect players in very different ways.

Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth handled it well, turning early attention into major titles and still holding top status on the Tour years later.

Others haven’t found the same path. Anthony Kim is a name that comes to mind, while Tom Kim and Nick Dunlap have shown promise without fully breaking through yet.

But when you look at Matt Wolff’s journey, especially since joining LIV Golf, there aren’t many others who seemed so set for success before completely losing momentum.

Matt Wolff’s struggles since winning on the PGA Tour aged 20

This isn’t meant to knock Wolff, who’s had a career most golfers would envy. And let’s not forget, he’s dealt with well-documented challenges away from the course.

But when you’ve got the kind of natural ability and eye-catching swing that Wolff possesses, it’s hard not to feel like more was expected from him by this stage.

Wolff picked up his first win at the 3M Open in 2019 and looked set for a long run of success. He finished T4 at the 2020 PGA Championship and followed it up with a runner-up finish at that year’s US Open.

Those early results backed up what many already believed: it wasn’t a matter of if he’d win again, but when.

However, things haven’t worked out as planned, and his move to LIV Golf in 2022 hasn’t helped matters either.

Matt Wolff’s journey through three different LIV Golf teams

Wolff first joined LIV Golf with Phil Mickelson’s Hy-Flyers but didn’t settle in, leading to a move to Brooks Koepka’s Smash GC. That stint also ended poorly, capped by a public split with Koepka. Wolff has since moved on to his third team in three years, now playing for the RangeCoats under Bubba Watson.

The fallout with Koepka was particularly harsh, highlighted by Koepka’s remark: “A lot of talent, but I mean the talent is wasted” after bringing in Talor Gooch as his replacement.

Wolff hasn’t found much success so far on LIV Golf. He has yet to win an event and has recorded just three top-ten finishes, including one this season in Korea.

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Still, it feels like Wolff hasn’t delivered on the early expectations. While he’s earning well on LIV, there’s a sense that he could have been a much bigger name if things had gone differently on the PGA Tour.

Wolff still has time on his side at just 26 years old. But getting back to the PGA Tour won’t be easy, and there’s a chance we’ve already seen the best of him before he gets another shot at that stage.