Winners and Losers from the 2016 WGC-Cadillac Championship

Adam Scott overcame two front-nine double bogeys in his final round and averted disaster at his last hole to win his second tournament in as many weeks at the WGC-Cadillac Championship.

The Australian's impressive triumph at the difficult Blue Monster against a field of the best golfers in the world reinforces the message of last week's triumph: Scott, long one of the best ball-strikers in the game and recently forced to abandon his long putter, is a force with the conventional-length flat stick in his hands.

With two wins already in the 2015-16 season, Scott is the headlining act on tour right now, stealing the stage from the so-called Big Three.

Clearly, Scott is this week's big winner.

Who else joins him? Who most certainly doesn't?

Click through to see.

Winner: Good Sunday Viewing

David Cannon/Getty Images

There were times early in the course of the WGC-Cadillac Championship when victory seemed a foregone conclusion for the elite golfer atop the leaderboard.

"Scott's gotta put the pedal down now!" seemed to be the story after the Australian's second-round 66 put him two strokes up on the field heading to the weekend at Doral.

Nope. Scott disappeared with a third-round 73 (before reappearing on the leaderboard Sunday).

"Rory's surely got this one in the bag," you said, after Rory McIlroy was four strokes ahead after three holes in the final round.

Instead, in the course of McIlroy fading and Scott eventually triumphing, Bubba Watson and Danny Willett all had a shot at the trophy. Thrilling stuff that came down to the final hole, where Scott got up and down to best Watson by a stroke.

Losers: Two-Thirds of the Big Three

Drew Hallowell/Getty Images

The top three golfers in the Official World Golf Ranking teed it up at the WGC-Cadillac Championship. Unfortunately, for two-thirds of them, things didn't go so well.

No. 1 Jordan Spieth didn't card a score better than his opening-round 69. Struggling with his normally trusted putter, Spieth finished tied for 17th at one under, 13 strokes behind winner Scott.

No. 2 Jason Day never got anything going. He tied for 23rd at even par.

No. 3 McIlroy played quality golf for three of the four rounds at Doral, entering the final round with a three-stroke lead. However, he limped to a Sunday 74 that left him tied for third.

Winner: Cavernous Leaderboard Gaps

Drew Hallowell/Getty Images

One of the unique elements of the WGC events: There's no cut. The limited-field events generally feature around 70 of the best golfers in the world.

The guaranteed money often produces an interesting phenomenon: Huge disparities between the winning and worst scores in which those at the bottom of the leaderboard seem to merely be going through the motions after getting off to slow starts.

This tournament saw a particularly striking instance of that divide. Steven Bowditch fired rounds of 81, 80, 80, 84 to finish at 37 over. Scott won the tournament at 12 under par.

That's right, Bowditch was 49 strokes worse than his countryman. But he wasn't alone: Kristoffer Broberg finished at 23 over, Scott Hend finished at 22 over.

Loser: Anyone Who Didn't Take Danny Willett as "Low Englishman"

David Cannon/Getty Images

If you were considering plunking down a few of you hard-earned dollars on an English golfer this week, consider who your options were entering the week:

• Danny Willett
• Paul Casey
• Justin Rose
• Andy Sullivan
• Matthew Fitzpatrick
• Chris Wood
• Ross Fisher

We'd assume 90 percent of the action was on Casey and Rose. However, Willett, who finished at 10 under, tied for third, four strokes better than any other Englishman.

Winner: Cross-Handed Putting

Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

McIlroy made the switch to a cross-handed putting grip at Doral this week.

The World No. 3 explained his decision to switch from the conventional grip in a press conference early in the week.

“I've been playing it around in my head a little bit about making the switch, and the one thing that I was sort of worried about was the McIlroy-copying-Spieth. That was my big thing.”

McIlroy picked up more than two strokes on the field average with his putter for the week, according to World Golf Championships stats. After his final round, the Ulsterman told reporters:

"

Just look at some of the saves I had out there today and some of the big par putts; those were the things that were missing over the past three or four tournaments. To be able to correct that and go out and play in a final group on a Saturday in a golf tournament like this on a golf course like this, and play bogey-free, it gives me a lot of confidence going forward.

"

Loser: Sunday Rory

Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

World No. 3 McIlroy entered the final round of the Cadillac Championship with a three-stroke lead on the heels of a third-round 68 (which followed a second-round 65).

All indications were that the Ulsterman, with his new cross-handed putting grip, was marching to victory in his Nike golf shoes.

But McIlroy came out flat, failing to make a birdie until his 16th hole. He hit just nine of 18 greens in regulation for his final round and was sloppy from tee to green.

McIlroy carded an untidy two-over Sunday 74. No other golfer on the first page of the leaderboard shot worse than even par.

Disappointing stuff from McIlroy. And worse, the door remains open to questions about the sharpness of his game as we move toward the Masters next month.

Winner: Rules Quandaries

David Cannon/Getty Images

Spieth found himself in an interesting rules situation.

Per ESPN's Jason Sobel:

"

On the practice green, if it gets shiny and we don't have a rag there, I'll lick my thumb and put it over the sole of the putter, because when it has moisture on it, it sets on the ground better. ...

They called the USGA. I don't know what exactly happened, but he came back to me on No. 8 and said they were still going to talk about it further, but for now they were going to rule that I can't do it.

"

J.B. Holmes flagrantly violated the rules of the game by taking a bad drop.

And a late-breaking bonus rules issue! Many in the Twittersphere were chattering about the possibility that Scott grounded his club in the hazard on his penultimate shot of the day.

If you read the USGA's rules of golf like the bible, the weekend at Doral was great fun.

Loser: Practicing, Apparently

Drew Hallowell/Getty Images

So if you've been grinding on the range, honing your knock-down 6-iron, this ought to frustrate you a bit.

Scott, you know, the guy who won the WGC-Cadillac Championship, didn't practice at all this week. That's right, he just showed up to the course, warmed up a bit on the range and went out and beat the best golfers in the world by a stroke.

While this may seem radical, it's worth noting that prior to Ben Hogan's virtual invention of the practice range session, tour pros didn't spend much time on Misery Hill, unless they had a particular kink to work out.

Outside of that, it was a "I don't want to waste my best swings on the range" atmosphere in the tour's early days.

Apparently, if you're firing on all cylinders, the approach still works.

All stats via PGATour.com unless otherwise noted.