Miguel Ángel Jiménez has gone from completing his weakest season on the PGA Tour Champions to marking his best year by far in just a few months. With five tournaments remaining, the man from Málaga is the undisputed leader of the ranking, with four victories, one second place, four third places, and 13 top 10 finishes. His main goal, at 61 years old, is to win the Charles Schwab Cup, essentially the FedEx Cup of the Champions. No Spaniard has ever achieved this, and the man from Churriana has it within reach. However, there are still battles to be fought, as Steven Alker, Stewart Cink, and Ernie Els are close behind and have not yet thrown in the towel. This Friday, he begins his participation in the Constellation Furyk & Friends in Jacksonville, Florida.
What has happened in Jiménez’s golf to go from having a modest performance to being the great dominator of the senior circuit in the United States in just a few months? Obviously, several factors come together, but the main reason is that Miguel has become the best putter in the history of the PGA Tour Champions. No more, no less. That’s how he and his peers feel, and the statistics back it up.
The American circuit for those over 50 has been collecting data since 1988. In 2025, Jiménez presents a birdie conversion rate of over 40 percent. Specifically, it’s 40.49%. This means that Miguel makes a birdie on 40.49% of the greens in regulation he hits. The figure is staggering. Never in the history of the Champions has a player reached that 40 percent, and often the best of the year has been around 32. It’s a different story. Just last year, Jiménez was at 32.97%.
Another striking statistic is the average number of putts per round. Miguel currently has a total of 27.83. It’s the second time in history that the average has dropped below 28 putts in a season. It only happened in 2018, and something really unusual must have occurred. Not only did it drop below 28, but as we said, it hadn’t happened in any other season between 1988 and 2025, and four players (O’Meara, Jiménez, Lyle, and Hallberg) were below 27. For whatever reason, more putts were holed than ever that year.
In any case, analyzing the two statistics, it’s not unreasonable to conclude that Jiménez is being the best putter of all time in the Champions this year. The issue now is to find out why it happened. Miguel himself explained this Thursday, stating that it was all due to an accident. “At the SAS Championship (October 2024), I had an incident with the putter after the first round, I couldn’t keep using it, and I used my wife’s (Susanne) putter. Until today,” he notes.
The putter he started using and became a staple is the Kushin C by PING. Mystery solved. “I changed my stance over the ball a bit, but not much more. The ball started going into the hole, I gained more freedom, and that’s how it went. There were no big changes, nothing major: just that the ball goes into the hole,” he explains with that natural and simple way of viewing golf and life. Jiménez assures that it has especially helped him with very specific putts. “I’ve never been bad with long putts; my problem was with medium and short putts, I wasn’t holing enough. I was especially missing putts of three or four feet, and that’s what happened for a couple of years. But this year I’m improving especially on those putts: yes, the three or four-footers have improved a lot; also the two or three-meter putts have improved a lot. They weren’t as good as they are now, and that helps you achieve it.”
Jiménez does not rule out that his great goal is to win the Schwab Cup. “It would be the ultimate, something incredible. I’m in first place; that’s better than second place, and second is better than third. I like it, I like the feeling of being there. I’ve been the target of all those ‘young 50s’, you know: you see Ernie, you see Stewart, you see Alker. I’m the target of all of them, but I’m fine,” he points out. Miguel reminds us, in case anyone is still confused, that not everything in his life and golf is wine and cigars. “Golf has given me everything in life, and I’ve given my life to golf. I want to keep doing it this way. I love golf, I love the game, I love what it has done with my life, and that’s what I want to do. People see me smoking and with my glass of wine, but people don’t see what I do in the morning when I get up. I go to the gym, I train. That also gives you life to keep doing what I want to do.”
Finally, Miguel has expressed admiration for the European Ryder Cup team. “I feel very proud of my team after all the suffering in New York. They played very well. After the first two days, I thought ‘this is done’, but what happened in 1999 came to mind, and I said ‘never… it’s not over until it’s over’. They played wonderfully, all 24, because Sunday was a mess. An incredible, beautiful week, and winning 15 to 13 is special, it’s special. Especially with everything that was said about Rory. They suffered a lot on the field, but they managed to win the trophy, and I am very proud of my team.”
