This article is part of our Weekly PGA Recap series.
The 2015 golf year essentially came to an end on Sunday with two tournaments half a world apart, one captured by someone who'd been knocking on the door for some time, the other by a guy who used to own the house.
Runner-up king Kevin Kisner cruised to victory in the RSM Classic in Sea Island, Ga., while former world No. 1 Rory McIlroy not only won the European Tour's DP World Tour Championship in the United Arab Emirates, but also the season-long Race to Dubai.
Kisner, the former Georgia Bulldog, scored his maiden PGA Tour win after four second-place showings in the previous seven months. He won by a whopping six shots over Kevin Chappell, and seven over a perhaps-rejuvenated Graeme McDowell.
McIlroy won his first title since May and his third Race to Dubai – the equivalent of the FedEx Cup playoffs. He withstood a water ball on 17 to edge overnight leader Andy Sullivan by a shot.
The RSM (formerly the McGladrey Classic) was the final PGA full-field event until the Sony Open in January. The 2016 Euro Tour actually begins this week in South Africa, with two more events next week (in Australia and South Africa) before breaking till the New Year. Almost all the top players will skip them.
This is the third go-round of the PGA Tour's wrap-around season, and we're still not seeing a large influx of big names taking part. It has allowed rookies, other Web.com Tour graduates and secondary and tertiary tour golfers to makes in-roads, and get a jump-start in the points race. There were seven winners in the seven fall series events, and Kisner was the sixth first-time champion.
For gamers, it's getting harder and harder to pick winners; on the other hand, the extreme worldwide depth is making it harder and harder to make a bad pick, at least in season-long leagues (as opposed to daily fantasy play).
MONDAY TAKEAWAY
Kevin Kisner
For some first-time winners, their victory turns out to be an anomaly. That doesn't appear to be the case for Kisner. Rather, it seems something finally clicked for the 31-year-old last spring. In his first 89 PGA Tour events, Kisner couldn't so much as crack the top three. In his next 20 tournaments, including the RSM, he's finished in the top two five times. Only Jordan Spieth has as many top-twos in the past seven months, albeit three of them are wins. The RSM may not have featured the most stellar field, but there were plenty of top golfers in Kisner's four runners-up. You never know how someone will respond after his first win, but expect more high finishes from Kisner.
Russell Knox
Knox finally gave himself a break after competing in the first five weeks of the new season, but he continued to make news while idle. The golfer who is second to Kisner in the point standings said he accepted European Tour membership in a bid to qualify for the Ryder Cup team. It won't really affect his standing among PGA gamers, as he needs to make only five starts to be a Euro member. And one will come in South Africa in two weeks. Since five European Ryder Cup spots are based on world ranking, Knox surely has an impetus to do well in all events, which sustains his increasing fantasy value.
Graeme McDowell
McDowell was the lone golfer among the seven tournament winners who had won before, though after a two-year drought, it almost felt like he was a first-timer. The Northern Irishman followed up that victory in the Sanderson Farms Championship with an RSM runner-up. The question now is, what is McDowell's worth? Is he a guy who's showcased a temporary upside, or one who has found his game again? As in real golf, that's what separates the fantasy champions from the also-rans.
Smylie Kaufman
Kaufman came out of nowhere to win the second event of the season, the Shriners Open, after a season-opening top 10 at the Frys. Since then, he's taken a step back, with T54, T34 and, at the RSM, T33. Of course, you have to cut a guy a little slack after his first win – it's life-changing. But Kaufman is someone who may have become overvalued with that win. The victory gets him into many big tournaments next year, but it's dicey to expect more big things in the near-term from the soon-to-be 24-year-old.
Patton Kizzire
The Web.com Tour's Player of the Year jumped out of the gate with a T2 and T4 to start his rookie PGA season. Since then, T58 in Mexico and an MC at Sea Island. As the secondary tour's leading money winner last season, Kizzire is not subject to the reshuffle, so he'll get plenty of starts. And because he's had two very high finishes, in a way he's shown more than some fall winners. Kizzire should be a nice piece to any season-long roster.
Chesson Hadley
Hadley was the 2013-14 PGA Rookie of the Year, and he's a prime example of how initial success guarantees nothing more. He went from 49th in the point standings his first season, to 98th last season, to 185th in the early going so far in 2015-16. Now to be fair, Hadley had the same number of top 10s (three) and top 25s (eight) in each of his first two seasons. But he hasn't had any in the past six months, and he's not in the conversation when it comes to young up-and-comers. His victory in the 2014 opposite-field Puerto Rico Open may be one of those anomalies.
Rory McIlroy
McIlroy won his fourth event of 2015 on Sunday, the same number he won last year, when he finished as No.1 in the world. But now he's No. 3, and the win in Dubai didn't raise that standing. Still, that's in large part to his lost summer, when he was sidelined from the U.S. Open to the PGA Championship after injuring his ankle, and subpar play upon his return. McIlroy will surely rededicate himself in hopes of retaking the top ranking from Spieth and Jason Day. If you haven't had your draft yet, McIlroy will be the likely No. 3 choice (the RotoWire League still drafts in early January). But don't bet on him being No. 3 in real life next year.
Branden Grace
The South African finished third in the Dubai tournament and in the Race to Dubai, his best showing ever. But unlike in 2012, when Grace was sixth in the Race to Dubai, he's now much more of a factor on the world stage. After coming oh-so-close over the summer at the U.S. Open before winding up T4, Grace was third at the PGA Championship and fifth at this month's WGC event in China. In between, he also was a force in the Presidents Cup. At 27, Grace could be entering the pinnacle of his career.
Byeong-Hun An and Matthew Fitzpatrick
Perhaps not familiar to the casual American golf fan, the 24-year-old Korean and 21-year-old Englishman tied for fourth in Dubai, and are the leading candidates for the Euro Tour's Rookie of the Year award. An has the edge, finishing seventh in the point standings to Fitzpatrick's 12th, while also winning a tournament in England in May. Fitzpatrick had 10 top-10s. The upshot is, we'll be seeing more of both in 2016, and they will be fantasy factors. An is ranked 39th in the world to Fitzpatrick's 49th. Their standing in the Race to Dubai qualified them for the WGC-Cadillac Championship in March at Doral.
Emiliano Grillo
Grillo also was part of the six-way tie for fourth in Dubai, but he's more well-known in the States by virtue of his win in the Frys last month. He's a young guy who's first win surely will not be an anomaly, and his stellar showing on Sunday only reinforces that. Not that gamers forgot.
Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson
Neither hit a shot in the fall season; who knows when Woods will hit another. We're not sure what else to say about the two golfers who dominated the past two decades. They are either on a steep decline or toward the bottom of that decline. Mickelson, remarkably, is still in the top 30 in the world, thanks mostly to runners-up at the 2015 Masters and 2014 PGA Championship. He hasn't played like a top-30 guy in more than two years, he's never really a factor to win anymore and he wasn't in those two majors, either (fun fact: Woods has actually won more recently than Mickelson, in the 2013 WGC-Bridgestone vs. the 2013 Open Championship). Yes, their auction values in the RotoWire League draft will be fascinating to learn, and probably will also be sad.
