Biggest Winners and Losers from the Franklin Templeton Shootout

It is the final event on the PGA Tour's 2014 calendar. It's also the last of the two silly-season events on the PGA Tour (the other being the Hero World Challenge).

But at least the Franklin Templeton Shootout has three different formats, making for different styles of play and some entertaining golf to watch.

Twelve two-man teams comprised of some of the best golfers in the world over three days in Florida. How bad could that be?

In every competition there are winners and losers and the following list calls attention to those. 

Winner: The Fox Drone

Francois Mori/Associated Press

A drone will give golf fans interesting perspectives on Fox telecasts.

Fox promised cool new innovations in their golf telecasts and they came up with a dandy.

We've all seen golf course flyovers from blimps, helicopters and airplanes.

But Fox broke out a new way to check out a course: from a drone's eye view.

It is indeed a cool view, one that's lower than any previous view and provides additional details that might be missed at a higher altitude.

Having that thing fly around windswept Chambers Bay ought to be really interesting in June when the U.S. Open is contested.

Winners: Jason Day and Cameron Tringale

Sam Greenwood/Getty Images

Cameron Tringale could be on the verge of big things.

In the Franklin Templeton Shootout's 26 years, only three teams had been able to go wire-to-wire to win the event.

Early Saturday evening, that became four when the team of Jason Day and Cameron Tringale outlasted the other 11 teams at Tiburon Golf Club.

It was a big victory for both players for different reasons. Day is coming off a season plagued by thumb and back injuries that did not allow him to build on his victory in the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play. The win should help him, confidence-wise, when the 2015 portion of the PGA Tour season begins.

For Tringale, a youngster still looking for his first victory on the PGA Tour, it's a win. And while it's not a regular stroke-play win, he had to endure the ups and downs of final-round pressure and he did so successfully.

He's one of the game's up and coming stars and became more dangerous after Saturday.

Losers: Mike Weir and Retief Goosen

Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press

Injuries have caused Mike Weir to fall far from the top of golf.

The oldest team in the Franklin Templeton Shootout was also the worst.

Mike Weir and Retief Goosen have won 15 PGA Tour events and three major championships between them, but those happened back in the early 2000s.

Since then, age and injuries have taken their toll and they are only a shadow of the players they once were.

They were 12-under par in the scramble and five-under par in the better ball. In between, they were the only team to record a round over par in the modified alternate shot format.

And in the end, they were the only team to not reach a total of 20-under par.

Winner: New Format

Mark Runnacles/Getty Images

Greg Norman did what needed to be done for a great event.

Franklin Templeton Shootout host Greg Norman surely wasn't crazy about the idea that it had been five years since his event had much drama on the final day.

Last year, Matt Kuchar and Harris English took out all of the excitement by posting a record 34-under par score of 182 to win by seven shots.

So the Great White Shark changed up the order of the competition, and he got exactly what he wanted; a one-shot victory for Jason Day and Cameron Tringale Saturday.

What changes did he make? The original order of play was modified from alternate shot, better ball and scramble. Norman switched it up to scramble, modified alternate shot and better ball. Having the tougher better ball format in the final round made it tougher for teams to separate themselves.

Losers: Graeme McDowell and Gary Woodland

Brennan Linsley/Associated Press

Gary Woodland had his power reduced by back issues on Saturday.

After the first-round scramble, the team of Graeme McDowell and Gary Woodland found itself four shots behind the leaders after posting a 59.

They picked up a shot in the second round and seemed to be in good shape heading into Saturday's final round. But Woodland, who had been putting the team in great positions off the tee with his long drives, came to the course with a balky back and was not nearly the factor he had been.

The team shot 66 in the better ball and finished four shots out of the lead in a tie for fourth.

Winner: The Fox Debut

USA TODAY Sports

Joe Buck is one of the best in the business.

The new voice in television golf made its debut Saturday when Fox Sports showed the final round of the Franklin Templeton Shootout.

It was a good start for the duo of Joe Buck and Greg Norman, the host of the event. Buck is a true professional as he's proven doing baseball and football for the network. Norman is a Hall of Famer and certainly has a different way of delivering information than the guy who used to sit in the lead analyst's chair, Johnny Miller.

The rest of the crew, certainly recognizable names in the game, seemed as a group to be a little over the top. That wasn't totally unexpected as everyone wanted to make a good impression. But Brad Faxon, Steve Flesch and Scott McCarron showed promise.

David Fay, the former USGA executive director, was on hand as a rules expert, but he had a very little part in the telecast since there wasn't much in the way of rules disputes. 

All in all a win for the first time out.