The year is more than two months old and the Masters is less than a month away, which gives us a sizable sample and a good time to ruminate on the surprising stories of the early 2015 season.

In this story, we’re looking at the year’s early risers and fallers, the players who have made a bigger name for themselves with great play and those that have seen theirs sunk with a slate of poor showings (and in one case, a leave of absence).

This is not a list of the players whose world golf ranking has fluctuated the most from the beginning of 2015 until now, although some of these players did make the cut on this list.

We also won’t include golfers whose rise stems from one hot — at this point fluke — week of play (*cough* Padraig Harrington *cough*).

This is a measure of the players whose profiles have risen and fallen the most based on the whole sample size of play.

The names are below.

RISING

James Hahn

Hahn captured the Northern Trust Open, his first PGA Tour title, less than a month ago, beating out a star-studded leaderboard that included Dustin Johnson, Hideki Matsuyama, Keegan Bradley, Jordan Spieth and Sergio Garcia.

For the 33-year-old to emerge from that pack was surprising to say the least, and many fans came away from the tournament wondering where this guy came from.

Hahn was a golfer at the University of California before quitting the team ahead of his senior year. He followed an interesting path thereafter, including a stint as a Nordstrom salesman, and was actually first noticed on the PGA Tour when he put together a few high finishes during the West Coast Swing in early 2013.

But between the 2013 and 2014 seasons in totality, Hahn made just 27 cuts in 53 PGA Tour events and barely earned enough points to keep his card each time.

In 2015, though, Hahn has emerged as a far better player. The 33-year-old jumped from 363rd in the world 86th in the calendar year thus far, and while the vast majority of that jump comes from his win, Hahn hopped up more than 65 spots based on the rest of his play.

In six PGA Tour starts in 2015, Hahn has survived every cut, and produced four top-30 finishes (it took him a full season to accrue that many top-30s in both 2013 and the 2013-2014 wraparound).

Hahn is by no means a star at this point, but his play thus far in 2015 is that of a comfortable PGA Tour regular rather than his previous of a player just hanging on year to year.

Anirban Lahiri

There’s no pressure quite like an entire nation hitching its hope to your prospects.

That is the situation Lahiri finds himself in after a sensational start to 2015. The 27-year-old emerged as India’s top golfer with his exploits on the Asian Tour, which included five wins between 2011 and 2014 and finishes of 10th, 3rd and 2nd on the circuit’s Order of Merit in the last three years.

But matters have stepped up several notches in 2015.

In his rookie year on the European Tour, Lahiri has already won twice, capturing the Maybank Malaysian Open and Hero Indian Open in February to quickly prove his meddle against a higher level of competition.

In the process, Lahiri has jumped from 64th to 34th in the World Golf Rankings, become a known commodity in the U.S. and emerged as the hope for India’s first ever major champion (and the first to make a Presidents Cup team).

A lot riding on Lahiri’s shoulders for sure, as he attempts to dwarf the accomplishments of previous Indian standard bearers Jeev Milkha Singh and Arjun Atwal and become his nation’s golfing conqueror.

He’s even been dubbed “The Indian Mickelson” (albeit facetiously).

Barring a significant rankings drop in the coming months, Lahiri will be in all of the biggest events–majors, WGCs, Players Championship–for the first time in his career.

A country’s burden is on Lahiri from here on out.

Daniel Berger

This 21-year-old got a little lost in the shuffle among the youngins’ who are starting to take over the game, but he has emerged in a big way in 2015.

Berger has already competed in seven PGA Tour events in the new calendar and has been quite fruitful in his rookie campaign. The Florida State product has made five of seven cuts and garnered a top-25 in every weekend he has competed in.

Among those five top-25s are three top-10s, including a playoff loss at the Honda Classic two weeks ago.

Berger’s college career didn’t match up with the Jordan Spieths and Justin Thomases of the world, but it was still quite robust. In his second and final year Berger was named to the Ben Hogan Award watch list and gained first team All-American honors for his season performance.

His 15th-place showing on last year’s Web.com money list secured his PGA Tour card and facilitated this early success.

Berger is the son of a former tennis pro and has gone from Tour fringes to the fringes of spots in the biggest tournaments in the world in his jump from outside the top-300 to near top-70 in the World Golf Rankings.

Berger’s not at the top of anyone’s list of best young golfers, but he’s quickly gaining steam there.

Andy Sullivan

Sullivan had a career year on the European Tour in 2014, in five top-10 finishes and a 33rd-place showing on the Order of Merit, and was one of the players to watch for on the European circuit in 2015.

And yet, the 28-year-old has still taken an unforeseen jump, winning twice and posting another top-5 against an excellent field in Dubai in the new calendar year. He currently stands ninth in the Race To Dubai rankings.

Those two victories were actually Sullivan’s maiden ones on the European Tour.

Sullivan was expected to earn his first win soon, but two so quickly has been a bit of a shock for this rapid riser.

FALLING

Tiger Woods

Surprising, right?

We don’t need to get into this one too much, but Woods has played three competitive rounds this year, with one ending in 82 strokes and another finishing up on the 12th green because of a back injury.

He may or may not have the short game yips, with former coach Hank Haney weighing in on the affirmative side.

Oh, and we still don’t know when Woods is next going to play golf after wallowing off the course at Torrey Pines in early February and subsequently declaring a leave of absence from golf.

It’s a stunning fall for the 39-year-old. His 2014 was actually worse than these first couple of months, but much of that had to do with poor health, and Woods seemed 100 percent ready to go in 2015.

For a guy who won five times and was the No. 1 player in the world when he was last truly healthy for a stretch in 2013, this is a precipitous drop.

I thought Woods would win his 15th major in 2015. That prediction looks awful right now, and I’m not willing to give up on it yet. But those whispers about Woods never regaining his previous form have become shouts in the opening months of 2015.

Luke Donald

The Englishman has been in a decline since his intermittent reign as World No. 1 for much of 2011 and the early parts of 2012 came to an end.

Uninspiring 2013 and 2014 calendar seasons dropped Donald all the way to No. 33 in the world, but the 37-year-old’s recent woes have reached a new low.

In 11 weeks in 2015, Donald has dropped 14 spots in the rankings, and with good reason.

The 2013 and 2014 seasons, while less than Donald’s expectation, produced about an 80 percent cuts made rate and 20 top-25s in 46 starts.

This year, Donald has survived just four of seven cuts and has one finish above a T49 (albeit that showing was a T7). Recent years have shown a diminished Donald, this version, though, is one who is playing a full PGA Tour schedule and would be out of the FedEx Cup Playoffs if they started today.

The development is especially disappointing in light of Donald’s optimism at the beginning of 2015. The Englishman reunited with his longtime swing coach (and former college coach) Pat Goss in November, determined to re-discover the consistency in his ball-striking that he felt he had lost under swing changes with Chuck Cook.

But in 2015, there’s been no sign that his approach play has improved, and his driving has regressed massively. After finishing in the 115 range in the PGA Tour driving accuracy rank in 2009 and 2010, the short hitter placed in the top 70 from 2011-2014, but is a disastrous 176th in this year’s wraparound.

Not only is he missing far more fairways, but he’s missing them by wider margins too, as his current 135th-place standing in “Distance from Edge of Fairway” is his worst showing in the category since 2009.

Something that has gone under the radar in Donald’s decline is that he has moved from the world’s best putter to just one of the best. But he’s been downright average in 2015, as he ranks 103rd on the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained — Putting.

Only Donald’s play around the greens is in a good place at the moment. The 2011 version of Donald is unlikely to ever return, but his further decline in 2015 has been a surprising development.

Bo Van Pelt

Van Pelt has really been the poor man’s Donald in the last few years, peaking with a 10 top-10 season in 2012 and a World Ranking of 20 that December only to consistently fall thereafter.

A thud has also landed in 2015, as Van Pelt has dropped nearly 70 spots in the World Rankings in the new year — especially frightening when he started outside the top-200 anyway.

Van Pelt became a contention machine from 2009-to-2012, earning 28 top-10s and 7 top-threes on the PGA Tour in that span. In the process, he became a hot name as an up-and-comer who might dive into a series of victories.

Instead, the American barely contended anywhere in 2013 and 2014. And matters have gotten worse in 2015.

Even in those tough two seasons, he earned a top-25 about once every three events and made nearly 70 percent of his cuts. In the 2015 calendar, he has zero top-25s in seven starts and made it to just 28 percent of the weekends.

In the prime of 2009-2012, Van Pelt was on and off a good putter and was a consistently great ball-striker (especially off the tee). His magic with the flatstick has plummeted since, and his ball-striking has taken a hit as well.

But his tee-to-green work has taken another couple of steps back in 2015, with his distance and accuracy experiencing significant drops, and after being one of the Tour’s premier drivers for a long time, Van Pelt could be considered below average on this front in 2015.

It remains to be seen whether Van Pelt can ever return to his 2009-2012 self, but he is certainly better than what he has been in 2015.

Matteo Manassero

This one is straight up baffling.

Manassero is just 21 years old and a four-time winner on the European Tour already. He’s kind of an odd case of a guy who is overrated in Europe and underrated in the U.S. In Europe, he has been compared to Seve, which is a bit premature for a guy who has bettered four top-10s in a European Tour season just once and really hasn’t contended in the majors, but in the U.S. he gets little mention despite his incredible winning record at Jordan Spieth’s age.

After a down 2014, Manassero seemed poised to bounce back (I sure thought so), but instead he has nosedived.

The Italian has competed in five tournaments this season, and, remarkably, has yet to make a cut. Actually, at his best he’s missed the cut by three shots. He’s been within striking distance of the leaderboard’s absolute bottom in three of these five events.

What is going on here?

Well, Manassero did undergo some swing changes in the 2013-2014 offseason, but they were by no means an overhaul. Even if this was a re-constuction on the Tiger scale, it doesn’t really excuse these results. As noted, Manassero hasn’t truly flashed dominance in a single season, but his steady play has meant that his worst campaign meant making 75 percent of his cuts.

Ironically, Manassero committed to the tweaks in order to compete on courses that didn’t fit his game and consequently become more consistent. Consistently awful was probably not his intention.

He’s also shown no signs of the “10-yard increase in distance” that the swing changes were supposed to bring about (and he was correct to target).

In every way then, Manassero’s tweaks have been a disaster one year out. Even in the short term, the 2015 results are alarming, with every part of the Italian’s game severely faltering.

For now, though, this is too small a sample to change your long-term stock in Manassero.