BMW Championship Recap: Bradley Wins; Spieth Misses Tour Championship

There were so many storylines emerging from the BMW Championship, so many seismic developments hitting us from so many different directions, that it's hard to know where to begin. There was Dustin Johnson losing the No. 1 ranking. There was Justin Rose overtaking him and, in his first official act in the top spot, blowing a four-footer to lose the tournament. There was Keegan Bradley putting out of his mind to win for the first time in six years. There was Tiger Woods capping a comeback season for the ages with another week in contention and a berth in the Tour Championship.

But for us, the top headline of them all emanating from Aronimink Golf Club outside Philadelphia on a dreary, rainy Monday was the failure of golf's Golden Boy, Jordan Spieth, to reach the final playoff event at East Lake.

Let us explain: Is it bigger than Woods' return to stardom after a fourth back surgery? In that context, no. But we've known for months that Woods' remarkable career renaissance was in full swing, and we've known for weeks that he had a good shot to get to the Tour Championship. But it wasn't until the dwindling moments of the fifth day of the rain-delayed third playoff event that we knew for certain that Spieth's 2017-18 season would incredibly end outside the top-30 in the FedEx Cup point standings.

The Texan is still No. 10 in the latest world rankings, the one that shows Rose ascending to the top spot for the first time in a professional career that spans almost as long as Spieth's entire life. But that's more a byproduct of Spieth ending last year at No. 2 in the world, with 2018 being a drip-drip-drip down the rankings. Despite only one top-10 finish in five months since a near-miss at the Masters, Spieth was still in position to get to East Lake. Beginning the week at 27th in the point standings, and needing only a 28th-place showing to stay inside the top-30, Spieth face-planted into a tie for 55th – in a field of 68.

"I was in control of my own destiny and didn't have it this week," Spieth told reporters at Aronimink in quite the understatement.

This is Jordan Spieth we're talking about. Former No. 1 golfer in the world, three-time major champion before turning age 25, mentioned so often in the same sentence as the two best golfers in history that you'd think Nicklaus, Woods and Spieth was a law firm. For goodness sakes, Patton Kizzire reached the Tour Championship, as did just about every top golfer in the world.

We will next see Spieth in three weeks at the Ryder Cup in Paris. If he continues to play the same way, the ramifications could be far greater than any individual failure.

And what about next season? It's inconceivable that Spieth will not regain most if not all of his Spiethiness and contend for majors and perhaps the top ranking, all the while driving on cruise control en route to Atlanta. After all, he's Jordan Spieth.

Come to think of it, we've written that last sentence before. Often, in fact. We don't know how many times over the past few months we've written: "After all, he's Jordan Spieth."

But you know what? In retrospect, in 2018 he wasn't Jordan Spieth, at all.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Tiger Woods
Woods' biggest accomplishment so far is simply returning to golf after so many injuries/surgeries. But reaching East Lake is pretty remarkable in that Woods had to subject his 42-year-old body to tournament golf five of the past six weeks. He didn't grade an A in every one of those weeks, but this past week, when a bad performance could've dropped him from the top-30, Woods held it together and tied for sixth. He's up to 20th in the point standings and on the verge of returning to the top-20 in the world, at No. 21. Can he win in two weeks outside Atlanta? We think you know the answer.

Keegan Bradley
We've written often about Bradley's world-class tee-to-green game. And then we'd invariably add something along the lines of: If he could only putt half-bad instead of horrendous, he'd win golf tournaments. Well, Bradley, ranked 186th in strokes gained: putting on the PGA Tour, led the BMW field in putting for the week and … well … he won the tournament in a playoff over Rose. Bradley hadn't won in six years, but his game really took a tumble a few years back when the anchored-putting ban kicked in, and the former Ryder Cupper fell outside the top-100 in the world. We're not gonna say that Bradley has overcome his putting woes the way Webb Simpson has. It's just one week. But it was a life-altering week that lifted Bradley into the Tour Championship, and to No. 31 in the OWGR.

Justin Rose
Rose taking over the No. 1 ranking is a huge story. But again, like with Woods, we saw this coming for some time. Rose has won four tournaments since the start of last year's playoffs, and has totaled an incredible 20 top-10s in the 13-month span. Rose ensured there would be a change at the top once he reached the playoff with Bradley. It's mind-boggling/bittersweet that his first act as No. 1 was missing a four-footer for par on the first playoff hole. It's hard to envision, at age 38, that Rose will have a long run as No. 1; the top-four are so bunched that he could even lose it in two weeks at East Lake.

Dustin Johnson
Johnson has hardly had a bad year. In 19 starts, he has three wins, two runners-up, 11 top-10s and 16 top-25s. But en masse, he hasn't played his very best in the biggest events, when the OWGR points are at a premium. Of course, a win in two weeks would restore Johnson to the top spot, and maybe it wouldn't even take a victory. Of Johnson, Rose, Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas – the top four in the world – Johnson is probably best equipped to be No. 1 for the long haul.

Xander Schauffele
Along with Bradley, Schauffele was the only other golfer to climb inside the top-30 at the BMW, with Spieth and Emiliano Grillo falling out. It was largely a subpar season for the defending champion at East Lake, but he delivered at the last possible moment, using a tie for third at Aronimink to move from 41st in the point standings to 18th. It would hardly be a surprise to see Schauffele in the mix once more at the Tour Championship.

Billy Horschel
Horschel is no stranger to getting hot in the playoffs – in fact, he's the poster boy for it. In a season that featured all of one top-10 in a tournament of consequence*, Horschel has tied for third in two of the three FedEx Cup events. Don't sleep on Horschel at East Lake, where he won in 2014, a week after winning the BMW, to capture the Cup and the $10 million that goes with it. (Horschel won the Zurich Classic, but that's a team event, and finished second at the Barbasol, an opposite-field event.)

Hideki Matsuyama
Matsuyama has certainly endured a disappointing year, one that has seen him fall far from the top five in the world and completely out of the who-is-the-best-golfer conversation. But in the past four weeks, he has salvaged his season, somewhat, by qualifying for the Tour Championship. Matsuyama tied for 11th at the Wyndham, then was T15, T4 and 15th at the first three playoff events. He's now 18th in the world, and it will be interesting to see how far he can climb back into the top-10, if he can get there at all. We suspect he will.

Tony Finau
As expected, Finau got the fourth and final U.S. Ryder Cup captain's pick. He got it after yet another top-10 (T8), his third in the three playoff events and 11th of the season. Most importantly for Jim Furyk, Finau finished 10th in the field in strokes gained: putting and increased his season-long Tour ranking to a better-than-average 71st. Finau's putting will be under a microscope in Paris.

Ian Poulter
We all know that Poulter is a Ryder Cup assassin. But he's going to be entering the competition in a pretty big slump. The Englishman flamed out of the playoffs on Monday with not even so much as a top-45 in the three events. He has only one top-10 since June and only two since mid-April. All that said, would it surprise anyone if he stars in three weeks? No.

Patton Kizzire
When Kizzire won the Sony in Hawaii in the second week of January, he secured his berth in the Tour Championship. After all, he had earned about 95 percent of his season-long winnings by then. Kizzire was last year's darling of the fall season, with a win, another top-five and a top-10. After winning the Sony, he had only one top-30 over the next eight months. It's nothing short of amazing that he was able to hang on, finishing the BMW in 61st place to wind up 30th in the point standings. A berth in the Tour Championship is life-altering for a guy such as Kizzire. At least half his schedule is set for next season, as it gets him into the four majors, The Players, two WGCs and a bunch of invitationals, including Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer's tournaments.