Tour Championship Recap: Schauffele Surprises With Victory

Another fantasy golf season is in the books. Get ready to settle in for a long, cold winter, everyone, because the next golf season doesn't start for … 10 days.

The Tour Championship, and with it the 2016-17 PGA Tour season, ended on Sunday with medium levels of excitement. With a few holes to go, it became apparent that Justin Thomas would win the FedEx Cup, fittingly capping off his season-for-the-ages: five wins, including his first major, plus a 59 in Hawaii in January and a 63 at the U.S. Open in June. He's up to No. 4 in the world and of course will be the Player of the Year.

The winner of the tournament came down to the final hole, and just like everyone predicted at the beginning of the playoff finale, Xander Schauffele came away with the victory (that's sarcasm, for the last time this season -- unless there's more lower down).

Schauffele's 2016-17 story could be more amazing than Thomas'. Less than four months ago, he was ranked about 350th in the world, a virtual unknown if not for his quirky name. He then finished fifth in the U.S. Open, won the Greenbrier and notched top-20s in the Open Championship, the WGC-Bridgestone and the first playoff event, The Northern Trust. He still needed a high finish in the third playoff event, the BMW, just to get to East Lake. He finished with yet another top-20 to quality. He's now No. 32 in the world.

But winning against the elite, season-ending field on Sunday was still a stunner. And any chance that the remarkable Patrick Cantlay had to win Rookie of the Year was gone. Schauffele will take that honor, too.

Since next season starts so soon -- Oct. 5 with the Safeway Open -- and fantasy golf players are always thinking about what's next, we'll use the Monday Backspin to summarize a golfer's season but also to take a brief look forward to next season. We say "brief" because the complete RotoWire 2017-18 Golf Preview Package is in the oven right now, and will be ready by the end of the week. Yum!

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Justin Thomas

Hard to believe that three years ago, Thomas was on the Web.com Tour. Now, even though the rankings say otherwise, he's the top golfer in the world. So can he win five times with a major next season? History of course says no. It's astoundingly hard to do it twice simply because it's incredibly hard to do it once. Further, it's hard to see Thomas play 25 times, as he did this past season, which is a lot for an elite golfer. Expect maybe two to four fewer tournaments. By comparison, Jordan Spieth had had the last five-win season back in 2014-15. He regressed to two wins the next season and three the season after that. Interestingly, Thomas said he didn't quite reach all his goals for this season, one of which was to finish top-10 in half his starts. He just missed, with 12 top-10s.

Xander Schauffele

The big question is, is this the new, real Xander Schauffele? Being only 23, it's entirely possible that this is. He could be a force on the Tour for the foreseeable future. But we always caution about golfers who have big breakthroughs, how their lives change immeasurably, impacting everything about them, including even practice time. It's impossible not to get caught up in the demands on their time, the perks that come with their new fame. Schauffele may very well prove to be a top-10 golfer. But it wouldn't be surprising to first see him taking a step or two backward.

Paul Casey

Casey was in position to win a tournament … again. But the leader after three rounds couldn't get it done … again. Casey is a great golfer, No. 15 in the world, with a long string of top-fives in big events the past two seasons. But he still has only one win on the PGA Tour, and that came eight years ago. He's now 40 and, as Dan Hicks couldn't stop saying on NBC on Sunday, he's still in great physical shape. But as more and more young guys emerge (Schauffele, etc.), it's only natural for Casey and other older guys to go the other way. He can still be a great fantasy option next season; just keep in mind it'll be hard for Casey to continue at the same level for a third straight season.

Jon Rahm

Rahm had played only 10 PGA Tour events before the 23 he was in this season. He won a tournament, he had two runners-up, two thirds and top-sevens in all four playoff events. And because of what Thomas (and Spieth) did, Rahm's accomplishments are a little undervalued and underappreciated. But he's even younger than Schauffele, still 22. After his first win back at Torrey Pines in January, Rahm showed no regression, no step backward. Already elite at No. 5 in the world, he could win a major and challenge for No. 1 next season. Which brings us to the next golfer …

Rickie Fowler

Fowler also had a win, two runners-up and two thirds, but he isn't viewed as favorably as Rahm and other top-10 guys (he's No. 8). The focus is always on what Fowler hasn't done: win a major. But he's also much older than the others, now 28, and – let's put aside the major talk – he has only four career PGA Tour wins. Thomas had five this season. And it has to be hard for Fowler to have seen Spieth achieve greatness before him and now Thomas. Will Fowler break through next season and win a major, win multiple tournaments? History tells us he won't. Which brings us to the next golfer …

Hideki Matsuyama

Matsuyama is 25. He also doesn't have a major, and if he doesn't get one soon will start to challenge Fowler for the dreaded Best Golfer Without A Major label. But he had a great season: three more wins with three runners-up. But after a win at the WGC-Bridgestone and a T5 at the PGA Championship, he collapsed in the playoffs – not even a top-20. You could even say the collapse began in the final round of the PGA, when playing partner Thomas caught and passed him. A Matsuyama spokesman last week admitted what was obvious: The Japanese star was tired. He played only 22 PGA Tour events, but Matsuyama has commitments other golfers don't have: He played four times in Asia in the so-called offseason, five overall, after the 2016 Tour Championship. This week, he's off to play the Presidents Cup. Let's monitor Matsuyama's workload during the rest of 2017. It will give us insight into 2018.

Kevin Kisner

Like Matsuyama, Kisner was also in the mix at the PGA Championship. In fact, he was leading most of the way before crumbling to a T7 on Sunday. He followed that up in his next four tournaments with T42, T54, T53, T67. Kicking away a major clearly affected him. So lo and behold, there was Kisner in the mix at East Lake, even taking the lead on Sunday. Then he bogeyed three of the first five holes in the back nine, including a disastrous water ball, to give away another win. Blowing two huge tournaments in such a short span means we'll keep an eye on Kisner to see how he can mentally recover. It might be good that he has to jump right into the Presidents Cup this week and be surrounded by and encouraged by his teammates.

Tony Finau

We've written a lot about Finau, how he has one of the best tee-to-green games on Tour, but how is putting has been holding him back. He tied for seventh in the Tour Championship and was impressively ninth in the field in putting (out of only 30 golfers, but they were the 30 best golfers). Finau still has only one career win, two seasons ago at the opposite-field Puerto Rico Open. We could see him elevating his game along the lines of Casey: boatloads of very high finishes without wins. But Finau is still only 28 and has shown some improvement on the greens. We'll watch how he putts at the beginning of the 2017-18 season.

Dustin Johnson

Remember him? No. 1 in the world? Still. Four wins, one runner-up, one third. Johnson was the Player of the Year-in-the-making back in February and March, when he won three straight tournaments, two of them WGCs. Then came the disastrous fall on the eve of the Masters, and Johnson was not a factor for many months. But he won the first playoff event, The Northern Trust. He didn't factor into the final three, with a T17 at East Lake. But would it surprise anyone to see Johnson be the top golfer next season, with another four- or five-win season? No.