Winners and Losers from the 2015 Players Championship
Golf fans were treated to an incredible, major-caliber finish at TPC Sawgrass as Rickie Fowler took home the crystal on a thrilling Sunday at The Players Championship.
And while Pete Dye's risk-reward project in Ponte Vedra may have its detractors, the course in general, and the island 17th in particular, does continue to produce dramatic finishes.
During NBC's telecast, Dan Hicks called Sunday's fourth round, "The greatest finish I've ever seen in this championship."
In that sense, we're all winners this week, having been treated to one heck of a show. Who joins Fowler and those of us lucky enough to watch/tune in for the final round?
Who doesn't?
Read on to see.
Winner: Rickie Fowler
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According to an anonymous Golf.com survey of PGA Tour professionals, Rickie Fowler (along with Ian Poulter) is the most overrated player on tour. News of this inglorious distinction hit the wires this week.
Fowler, who has won just once on tour, commented on the less than flattering characterization: "If there's a time where I need something to kind of give me a kick in the butt, then I can think of that and it will put me in the right frame of mind to go out there and take care of business," per Steve DiMeglio of USA Today.
"Taking care of business" was exactly what Rickie Fowler did over his closing holes Sunday. Fowler went birdie, eagle, birdie, birdie over his closing four holes Sunday to seize the tournament lead and set up a playoff with Kevin Kisner and Sergio Garcia.
Fowler manhandled Sawgrass' iconic 17th hole, birdieing it five times in six attempts this week, including twice in the playoff. No shot was better than his wedge approach shot in the sudden-death playoff with Kisner, which the Oklahoma State alum stuffed four feet from the pin.
And with the made putt, little more than a tap-in, Fowler offered a strong rebuttal to his critics.
Loser: Your Playoff Expectations
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Admit it: When Rickie Fowler, Sergio Garcia and Kevin Kisner went to the three-hole aggregate playoff, Kisner was the man most golf fans pegged as "least likely to succeed."
Kisner, who went nose-to-nose with Jim Furyk at the RBC Heritage earlier this year, is presently 123rd in the Official World Golf Ranking. In his four seasons of competing primarily on the PGA Tour, Kisner has never raised a trophy.
Still, he battled Rickie Fowler valiantly until the end, outlasting Garcia in the three-hole aggregate playoff. His tie-for-second finish and demonstrated ability to handle near-major championship pressure down the stretch make the everyman Carolinian a winner this week.
Winners: Long-Odds Players
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If you're a betting man/woman, this year's Players Championship may not have been too kind to your pocketbook. Two of the top four favorites (Jordan Spieth at 7-1* and Justin Rose at 18-1) failed to make the cut at Pete Dye's sinister layout.
A number of golfers with some seriously long odds fared much better.
Consider Derek Fathauer, listed at 750-1 odds to win the tournament. Fathauer, in his maiden trip to TPC Sawgrass, opened with a four-under 68 and never looked back. He finished inside the top 25. Not bad for a golfer bookies listed at the worst odds to win the tournament.
A bit higher up on the leaderboard, three golfers listed at long odds finished inside the top 10. Brian Harman, who was listed at 400-1 odds to win, finished tied for seventh. Ben Martin and Jamie Donaldson, both of whom were pegged at 150-1 odds, finished inside the top 10 at the Pete Dye track.
Rather than pointing to any sort of incompetency on the part of oddsmakers, and allowing for the randomness of any golf tournament, the above speaks to the fact that at TPC Sawgrass, plodding and good breaks can produce results. Alternatively, a bad swing/poor decision can send a golfer packing.
*Odds via SB Nation.
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Losers: The FedEx Cup Top 2
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Entering The Players Championship, Jimmy Walker and Jordan Spieth were perched one and two atop the FedEx Cup Standings. Both players have won already this season and neither had shown signs of being seriously off their respective games coming into TPC Sawgrass.
Even more significantly at a course that values experience, both players finished inside the top 10 at The Players last year.
So, it was surprising to see both Walker and Spieth on the wrong side of the cut line at this year's competition.
Spieth carded rounds of 75, 72 to miss the cut by three. Walker wasn't much better: JW shot 71, 75 to finish at two over, two strokes outside the cut line.
Perhaps most concerning, Spieth said the following after his Friday round: "I told you on the podium yesterday that it wasn't just an off day. There's something going on with my swing that I'm not comfortable with, and it showed today, too," per the Associated Press (via Golf.com).
Winner: Sergio Garcia
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Sergio Garcia has been both hero and goat in his career at TPC Sawgrass. For example, he vanquished Paul Goydos in a playoff in 2008 (thanks to a brilliant shot at the 17th), and he came up short in a final-round showdown with Tiger Woods in 2013 (thanks to a terrible shot at the 17th).
It was fitting, then, that the divisive par-three 17th played a critical role on Sunday for Garcia again in this year's competition. After a tee shot that went longer and farther left than he'd have liked, Garcia holed a 43-foot downhiller that Bobby Locke might have expected to make twice in one hundred attempts.
The unexpected birdie punched his ticket for a playoff and proved again—amid a relatively lackluster season—that he's a perennial threat at Sawgrass. For that, he's a winner this week, even though he was a playoff loser.
Loser: Tiger Woods
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Returning to competition for the first time since the Masters, Tiger Woods needed a birdie on his final hole Friday to make the cut, which isn't exactly an indication that a golfer is, say, in danger of winning a golf tournament.
After a Sunday 72, Woods finished at three over par, tied for 69th. How can we call that a good thing, save for the fact that Woods completed another tournament without injury?
It's odd to think we're at a point where Woods merely making the cut is some sort of a moral victory. And while there were positive elements this week, there were also some serious lowlights, such as Woods double-bogeying two par-fives in the same round and triple-bogeying the 14th hole Sunday after rinsing his tee shot (amid a stretch of four birdies, no less).
Equally head-scratching: Woods chipped in for birdie at the par-three 17th Thursday, then promptly stepped to the 18th tee and hooked his drive into the water.
And while Woods has missed the cut at TPC Sawgrass, his four-day 291 is his worst total in a Players Championship he's made the cut in.
Still, the 79-time tour winner sounded an optimistic tone after his final round, per PGATour.com:
"(My swing) feels a lot closer. We added a couple new pieces and they were really good. I'm very pleased. I didn't have one bad warm-up session this week, which is great. So that's a sign that we're heading the right direction. Out there, I reverted back a couple times, so be it, it happens. But also I did some really good stuff out there too.
"
Winner: Rory (Not That Rory)
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Rory played some good golf this week. Not surprisingly, he finished tied for sixth at nine under par, three strokes off the winner's pace.
The only surprising thing about Rory? His last name: Sabbatini.
The illustrious Sabo entered The Players having missed six of his last seven cuts. Historically, he's never had any success at Pete Dye's track. So challenging for the lead Sunday, rolling in a birdie at the iconic par-three 17th...all of that came as a bit of a surprise.
The "other" Rory? He couldn't do enough on the weekend to win, commenting on the telecast after his round that his putter had let him down. McIlroy finished tied for eighth.
Loser: Phil Mickelson on the 18th Hole
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Phil Mickelson dusted off his Callaways for his first competitive round since the Masters—nearly a month ago—where he finished runner-up to Jordan Spieth.
The results weren't quite what he'd have liked, and one hole had a lot to do with Lefty's early exit. Mickelson double-bogeyed TPC Sawgrass' difficult 18th hole during his opening round. And for his efforts Friday, he was rewarded with an even worse score, a triple-bogey 7.
The left-hander had an interesting take on his cut-missing performance at Sawgrass, per the New York Post:
"I was thinking to myself as I was walking around, "I can't believe I've actually won here." This is a very penalizing course. I kept hitting it in spots that were impossible recoveries. Certainly the water [where he hit his approach shot on 18], that's a tough recovery. But I put [the ball] in some bad spots this week.
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Mickelson hit just 52.7 percent of greens in regulation for his two days' work. He lost more than four strokes to the field from tee to green.
He offered another classic Mickelson take in his assessment of his week: "I'm not overly pleased, but I'm not as discouraged as the scores would indicate."
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