TOUR Championship Recap: DJ Seals the Deal

Well, where to begin? With Dustin Johnson winning the TOUR Championship, or Dustin Johnson not winning the TOUR Championship? Because both happened Monday at East Lake.

Officially, Dustin Johnson won the TOUR Championship by two strokes over Xander Schauffele and Justin Thomas and by four over Jon Rahm on a leaderboard as top-heavy as we've seen in some time. And we're not making a joke about the 10 strokes DJ was gifted at the start. Aside from taking home a cool $15 million, Johnson secured his first FedExCup trophy, one of the few milestones he has yet to achieve in a Hall of Fame career.

On the other hand -- and we promise to do this briefly -- in reality, Schauffele had the best 72-hole score of 15-under-par, four better than Johnson and Thomas, with – whoa! – Scottie Scheffler in solo second at 12-under. But reality isn't official in the PGA Tour universe, and we can say whatever we want and stomp our feet but it doesn't matter: Johnson won the tournament and the Cup to cap off a remarkable late-season surge that will almost assuredly earn him Player of the Year. 

Reality is official in one regard, as the Official World Golf Ranking considers Schauffele the winner, and handed out their points for the Tour Championship accordingly.

Back to Johnson in a minute.

But first, a thought about the course: East Lake is -- how shall we say this? – blah. While the leaderboard was otherworldly, they didn't really put too much pressure on Johnson. Yes, that's because they couldn't make enough putts, but there just aren't many drama-providing holes. There's water, sure, but how many times did balls go in? And ending with a par-5 rarely delivers. Maybe at a birdie-fest, but this ain't the 3M Open.

Okay, more on Johnson. First, it's impossible to predict how he would have played if he didn't have a five-stroke lead over Schauffele heading into the final round. Maybe he would have netted better than 11 strokes under par had he not been using the four corners offense for the final round. No matter. 

It's hard to believe this was the same Johnson who followed up a Travelers Championship win in June by Steven Bowditch-ing his way around Muirfield Village with an 80-80 trunk-slam and following that up with a 78-WD at TPC Twin Cities. Tellingly, he didn't even take a week off before immediately finding his game with a tie for 12th at the WGC-FedEx event. Which brings us to...

An update the Koepka-o-meter: Ever since Brooks Koepka trashed his former-if-ever good pal, all Johnson has done is finish 2-1-2-1. And with his third win of the season Monday, he probably overtook Thomas for POY at the last possible moment.

Johnson won his 23rd career title, breaking a tie with the great Raymond Floyd and others for 27th on the all-time PGA Tour wins list. He's one away from Gary Player, two behind Johnny Miller. He's getting into sentences with some of golf's biggest bold-faced names.

Some of you will say "Yeah, but..." And, yeah, you have a point. But at some point the lonely number "1" in the majors column has to be viewed in relation to the rest of DJ's career. He's a Hall of Famer in every way but, um, one.

It's impossible to imagine a player going into a major – the U.S. Open is in two weeks – hotter than Johnson is heading into Winged Foot. That doesn't mean he'll win. You can play great and still lose to the likes of Thomas, Rahm and Collin Morikawa. There's no shame in that. As long as there's not another DJ moment: Whistling Straits, Chambers Bay, you get the picture. Because that could actually detract from his legacy more than a major could enhance it.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Xander Schauffele
Schauffele may have had the best week, but he didn't actually win, so it's actually coming up on two years since he's really, really, officially won. But he's had a boatload of high finishes, which got me thinking: Hey, that's kinda Finau-like. Yes, Schauffele has four career wins to Tony Finau's one, and two of them are big ones, at the TOUR Championship and WGC-HSBC Champions. Yes, that may be the Shemp of WGCs, but it's still a WGC event. Schauffele's last win was at the 2019 Tournament of Champions. Since then he's had five runners-up – at the Masters, again at the WGC-HSBC Champions and now the past two TOUR Championships. We often marvel how he's in the mix at big tournament after big tournament. That counts for a lot. But at some point, and soon, Schauffele is gonna need to take home another title.

Justin Thomas
When there are so many great golfers, not everyone can be No. 1, not everyone can win POY. Thomas won three times in 2019-20, finished second once and finished third once. He had 10 top-10s in 18 starts. There's really not a lot to say here. He's one of the best few golfers on the planet and has as good a chance as anyone to win at Winged Foot.

Jon Rahm
Pretty much the same as the Thomas paragraph. Rahm won twice on the season, with a runner-up and a third. He had eight top-10s in 15 starts. He's there almost every week. He missed only one cut. And it was a mentally-strong effort to stay in contention for 72 holes a week after the biggest win of his career.

Scottie Scheffler
If Scheffler didn't have the Rookie of the Year sewn up before the TOUR Championship (he did), his top-5 in Atlanta sealed it. That's quite an upset in beating out Viktor Hovland. Scheffler had a strong fall season, but he showed pretty quickly it wasn't just because of the weaker fields. He held his own with the big guys, finishing with a top-15 at the WGC-FedEx event and top-5s at the PGA, the Northern Trust and now East Lake. All that was missing was his first win. He's now inside the top 30 in the world rankings for the first time.

Collin Morikawa
One of the crazy things that happens on Tour from time to time is that when a young player all of a sudden makes his mark – a big win, flush with cash, plus more stature on Tour – it's not uncommon for him to take a step back in sort of a sophomore slump. Morikawa is more level-headed and that won't happen to him. He missed a cut right after he won the PGA – completely normal – but followed that with good weeks at the BMW (T20) and the TOUR Championship (6th). He should be right in the mix at Winged Foot.

Rory McIlroy
The tie for eighth was McIlroy's first top-10 since play resumed in June. Except, you know, only 30 players were in the field, so big whoop. He played nine tournaments and the entire time knew his wife was pregnant, and it was during a very unsettling time in the world. Did that affect his play? We'll never know. But of all the top golfers, only he and Koepka really didn't do anything after the restart, and Koepka was hurt. We won't say McIlroy is back on his game until he shows us. It seems that two weeks from now at the U.S. Open might be too soon.

Patrick Reed
Reed's season was definitely front-loaded, with a win at the WGC-Mexico event and a runner-up at the Tournament of Champions. But when it was all over, he had more top-10s (eight) than in any other season but one (11 in 2015-16). He won for the seventh year in the past eight. He even shot a 65 on Monday at East Lake to tie Scheffler for best round of the day and zoom up the final leaderboard of the season into a tie for eighth. He's kind of the MacGyver of the PGA Tour, just using whatever tools he has to get the job done.

Webb Simpson
Not many athletes can say their best season came at age 35, but Simpson has a case. He won twice, just as he did in 2011, when he also had three runners-up. But he had a runner-up this season, too, with three thirds. He finished the season sixth in the world after rising as high as fourth. He finished T12 at the TOUR Championship, so he didn't gain any edge for skipping the BMW Championship the week before. But no matter. That doesn't take away from his best PGA Tour season ever.

Daniel Berger
Unfortunately for Berger, his best season on Tour ended with him playing alongside Collin Morikawa on Monday, and only one of them got any TV time. Berger shot a 3-over 73 to slide into a tie for 15th. After a T25 at the BMW, his ending was an ordinary after such a hot stretch earlier in the the summer – a win, a second and two thirds. He made it to 13th in the world. The question now is whether he can take the next step into the top 10 or even higher. With all that the talent at the top, that will be hard.

Brendon Todd
Todd will be hard-pressed to match his 2019-20 season for no other reason than he won twice – and in consecutive tournaments at the alternate-field Bermuda Championship and then in Mexico. He was fourth his next time out at the RSM Classic, but for all his good play after the restart, he didn't have a top-10 until the middle playoff event. And then he faded to a tie for 20th at East Lake. So while Todd was very, very good, there could be a little – not a lot – of regression next season.

Tony Finau
Another season, another winless season. It's now 119 PGA Tour events since Finau won his only title, and it was an alternate-field event at that (2016, Puerto Rico). He's top-15 in the world, he racks up top-10 after top-10 after top-25. So he's doing a lot right. And he even putted better this season, good enough to win some weeks with a season-long ranking of 69th in SG: Putting. Wouldn't it be wild if that next win came at a major? It could happen.

Bryson DeChambeau
He did nothing in the playoffs, but it can't detract from how good he was once play resumed, with four straight top-8s culminating with a win at the Rocket Mortgage. And if you go back before the stoppage, it was seven straight top-8s. When you throw in a tie for fourth at the PGA, it was an awesome three months for DeChambeau. The PGA was the first time he ever had a top-15 at a major, but it wouldn't be a surprise if he did it again in two weeks.

Mackenzie Hughes
Hughes was the surprise winner of The RSM Classic in the fall of 2016. He then proceeded to miss a whopping 36 of 64 cuts encompassing the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons and all the way into February of this year. Then, as they say, a switch was flipped. Out of nowhere. It began with a runner-up at the Honda event, then a T3 at the Travelers Championship, a T6 at the Memorial and, before you knew it, Hughes was in the TOUR Championship. Beginning at the bottom rung in the staggered scoring, he made his way into the top-15. That stretch of golf beginning at PGA National has completely altered Hughes' career path.