This article is part of our Weekly PGA Recap series.
Both major golf tours came to an end of sorts Sunday. The RSM Classic signaled the final PGA Tour event before the traditional holiday break, while the European Tour's 2018-19 season finally concluded with DP World Tour Championship.
And the winners could not be more disparate.
Tyler Duncan — 30 years old, 5-feet-8, 150, and ranked close to 400th in the world — took down Webb Simpson on the second playoff hole on St. Simons Island, Ga., for an out-of-nowhere maiden victory. Meanwhile, Jon Rahm — barely 25 years old, 6-2, 220, and one of the elite players in the world — birdied the final hole to edge Tommy Fleetwood and win the season-long Race to Dubai.
Let's start with Rahm.
Like we said, Rahm just turned 25, and now he's up to No. 3 in the world following his third win of 2019. He still has a ways to go to overtake both Brooks Koepka and Rory McIlroy to get to No. 1, but that vision just got a whole lot clearer. The one thing that has been holding Rahm back more than anything else is his temperament, and he has done a great job in getting that under control.
Which is why all signs now point to 2020 being the best year of the Spaniard's still-burgeoning career. Rahm has not won a major, and among all the things you need to happen to win one, keeping your composure is high on the list.
Rahm performed well in the
Both major golf tours came to an end of sorts Sunday. The RSM Classic signaled the final PGA Tour event before the traditional holiday break, while the European Tour's 2018-19 season finally concluded with DP World Tour Championship.
And the winners could not be more disparate.
Tyler Duncan — 30 years old, 5-feet-8, 150, and ranked close to 400th in the world — took down Webb Simpson on the second playoff hole on St. Simons Island, Ga., for an out-of-nowhere maiden victory. Meanwhile, Jon Rahm — barely 25 years old, 6-2, 220, and one of the elite players in the world — birdied the final hole to edge Tommy Fleetwood and win the season-long Race to Dubai.
Let's start with Rahm.
Like we said, Rahm just turned 25, and now he's up to No. 3 in the world following his third win of 2019. He still has a ways to go to overtake both Brooks Koepka and Rory McIlroy to get to No. 1, but that vision just got a whole lot clearer. The one thing that has been holding Rahm back more than anything else is his temperament, and he has done a great job in getting that under control.
Which is why all signs now point to 2020 being the best year of the Spaniard's still-burgeoning career. Rahm has not won a major, and among all the things you need to happen to win one, keeping your composure is high on the list.
Rahm performed well in the biggest tournaments in 2019, finishing T12 at The Players, T9 at the Masters, T3 at the U.S. Open and T11 at the Open Championship.
His game really has no weakness now that he has his emotions under control, so there really is no track he can't win on. Which makes winning majors that much easier, if we can call it that.
As for Duncan, this win may be his career highlight. In an interview on Golf Channel after draining the winning birdie putt on the second playoff hole, no one looked more amazed by his win that Duncan did. And with good reason — he'd never come remotely close before.
As we noted, Duncan is already in his 30s, and this is only his third season Tour. He had three top-10s before this victory, the best a tie for fifth at the Byron Nelson Classic in May.
Duncan is the sixth first-time winner in the fall season, which tells us two things: 1) On any given Sunday, so many of these guys are capable of winning, especially in such a weak field as there was at the RSM and 2) the folks at Augusta National are not happy that their Masters field grew by a half-dozen in just two months.
Joaquin Niemann, Sebastian Munoz, Cameron Champ, Lanto Griffin, Brendon Todd and now Duncan have punched their ticket to the year's first major.
Some of these guys have bright futures, especially Niemann and Champ, and Todd had won two in a row before challenging again at Sea Island. So they aren't outliers.
We may also hear more from Duncan in the years ahead. But maybe not.
MONDAY BACKSPIN
Simpson was the top golfer in the RSM field, but once you get into a playoff, it's really a coin flip. No shame in finishing second. Which is something Simpson has become quite good at. Despite not winning in 2019, he did finish as runner-up four times, and all came in the last three months. The late surge was enough to move him to No. 11 in the OWGR. Simpson will turn 35 in August, but there's little to suggest he won't continue to be a fantasy star in 2020.
Munoz might be someone to keep an eye on. He's only 26, he's just in his second season on tour and his solo third at Sea Island comes on the heels on winning the Sanderson Farms just two months ago. The native of Colombia and North Texas alum had six top-25s last season, three of which doubled as top-10s.
Todd won two in a row coming in and, even though one was the opposite-field Bermuda Championship, that's quite an accomplishment. And when he carried a share of the 54-hole lead into Sunday, he was looking at some serious history. But he was unable to break par and wound up solo fourth. Still, 1-1-4 is pretty dang amazing, and he's up to No. 72 in the world. More than five years ago, Todd was ranked 40th in the world, so this isn't completely out of the blue. But since that was so far back, we honestly don't know where this leaves Todd heading into 2020, though we do know the competition will get a lot stiffer now that the fall season is over.
We've had a bit of a soft spot for Norlander since learning he was at odds with a teammate at two-time NCAA champion Augusta State at the beginning of the decade. Fellow by the name of Patrick Reed. They were co-stars and All-Americans on the title teams. Yet while Reed has gone on to greatness, Norlander has struggled. This is only his third year on the PGA Tour, and he's spent more time on the Korn Ferry Tour. Norlander began this season by trunk-slamming in four straight events. But now he's made four straight cuts, culminating with Sunday's tie for fifth. That's the second-best showing of his PGA Tour career, after his runner-up at the very same RSM Classic years ago. Norlander resides in the 200s OWGR, and simply keeping his card for next season will be a struggle. But we'll be rooting for him.
Scheffler tied for fifth, giving him a third top-10 in seven starts during the fall. He is now up to No. 67 in the world, which is higher than, among others, Collin Morikawa, Matthew Wolff and Viktor Hovland. As with everyone who has done well during the fall, the fields are about to get significantly tougher after the New Year. But Scheffler is showing he could be the best of the young guns trying to make their mark on the PGA Tour.
Fleetwood pushed Rahm to the 72nd hole in Dubai before ending one shot shy of a playoff. It was quite a way to finish the European season, one week after winning in South Africa. The one-two punch moved Fleetwood back into the top-10 in the world, and one slot off his career-best ranking of No. 9. Like Rahm, Fleetwood has never won a major. Also like Rahm, he seems ready to win one in 2020. Of course, there are only four to go around, and we can say that about a lot of guys.
The 23-year-old Scot tied for 14th in Dubai to wrap up the European Tour's Rookie of the Year honors. It's a points-based system, and MacIntyre beat out Kurt Kitayama, who won twice during the season. So that means MacIntyre must've done a whole lot without winning, right? Indeed. He had three runners-up and four other top-10s, including a tie for sixth at the Open Championship. The young left-hander is up to 66th in the world and we should expect to see him in all the big tournaments next year.
Despite never really contending, McIlroy finished solo fourth in Dubai. It culminates his best year since 2016 and brings him within about one point of Brooks Koepka for the top spot in the world. With Koepka battling a knee injury, McIlroy may very well overtake him early in 2020. But as we all know, McIlroy hasn't won a major in five years. And all the tournament wins and No. 1 rankings won't mean as much if he doesn't win one next year.
As if to offer one final reminder that he is back from oblivion, Willett finished solo fifth in Dubai to move back inside the top 30 for the first time in almost two and a half years. It's hard to forget how far and how fast Willett fell after winning the 2016 Masters. But he now appears to be completely healthy and completely rededicated to winning, so who knows how high he can soar in 2020.
It was a down year by Garcia, one that saw him fall from inside the top-25 OWGR to near 40th. But his tie for sixth in Dubai was quietly his ninth top-10 of 2019, and he even won once, albeit in the so-so KLM Open. Garcia will be 40 — FORTY! — in less than two months (Where has the time gone?) and is married with a second child on the way. He's got a lot on his plate besides golf. He may have some moments still ahead, but he'll probably end next year closer to 50th in the world, and maybe outside of it.
There aren't many golfers who can look as amazingly good and as horribly bad as Pieters. He tied for sixth in Dubai, culminating a year in which he plunged outside of the top 100 in the world and then jumped back in by winning the Czech Masters. He made 12 consecutive cuts to end the season. Pieters is still only 27 and, even though he stands 78th in the OWGR, he has the goods to again crack the top 25.
