Weekly Recap: Berger With Cheese

Daniel Berger is a very good golfer. Maybe even great. He sure looked the part while holding off all competitors at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on Sunday.

The thing is, Berger isn't Jordan Spieth. And even though Spieth came up short for the second week in a row, the fact that he was even in position to come up short is the biggest news of the week.

We will give Berger his due, then move on to Spieth.

Berger was dealt a bad hand when golf stopped last spring, and Masters qualifying was halted. That he went on a tear once the sport resumed, moving from outside the top 100 in the world rankings to inside the top 20, meant nothing. He was ineligible to play at Augusta last November. However, he will certainly be in the next edition, as well as all the other top tournaments for years to come.

He's now one of only five golfers to win twice since the restart, and the others are Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa and Bryson DeChambeau, all top-10 guys. Berger is up to 13th, just off his personal best of 12th.

His signature win came at the Charles Schwab Challenge last June. You may not think of Colonial as a big deal, but that was the first tournament back after the stoppage and the field was full-on loaded. He beat Morikawa in a playoff, with DeChambeau and Xander Schauffele finishing a shot back.

At Pebble Beach, the field was not nearly as deep, but all the best guys were right at top, with Patrick Cantlay, Paul Casey, Jordan Spieth and Jason Day all in the mix.

Clearly, Berger is showing an ability to go toe-to-toe with anyone.

He has now recorded a win in four of the past six seasons, and the two misses were during his recovery from a severe wrist injury.

Berger has only one weakness in his game -- he's ranked 161st in SG: Around-the-Green, and he's been well outside the top 100 most years. Truth be told, if you are going to be lacking in any SG category, that would be the one. But you don't want to be lacking in any, and certainly not in that one when it's Masters time in two months.

Jordan Spieth
Once more, the question comes up: Is Jordan Spieth back? Following a T4 last week in Phoenix -- his first top-10 in eight months -- Spieth finished T3 at Pebble. Both times, however, he had at least a share of the 54-hole lead but couldn't convert. At Pebble, he entered Sunday two clear of the field. *More on that lower down.

He has moved from 91st in the world two weeks ago, to 69th and now to 62nd. That's still not enough to get him into the WGC event in Florida in two weeks, but he could still qualify at Riviera, and even if doesn't quite get there, he could still earn an invite if the field of 72 does not fill up.

The past two weeks, Spieth putted decently and hit his irons far better than he had been. He's always been a good wedge player. He is still struggling off the tee. Not so much with distance but accuracy. That tended to be the weakest part of his game even when he was at this best. So he doesn't need it to be great for him to be back, at least in our eyes.

So, is Spieth back? If you ask a lot of golf fans, that depends on their definitions of back. Does back mean a win? Does it mean a major win? Does it mean returning to No. 1? Since many folks were declaring Spieth back after the WMPO, it's clear many have a much lower bar. And it's understandable, because most fans want Spieth to be back.

We're not prepared to say Spieth is back. Maybe not even bac. But more than ba. We'll say that Spieth is somewhere between ba and bac.

There are now eight weeks until the Masters, which is plenty of time to go from ba to bac to all the way back.

*Spieth is the first player in eight years to hold the 54-hole lead in consecutive weeks and not win, according to @JustinRayGolf on Twitter. The last had been Daniel Summerhays in 2013. So that alone should tell you that one of the great closers during his heyday is, in fact, not quite back. 

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Maverick McNealy
Someone in the RotoWire One-and-Done Pool actually picked McNealy this week. That's a remarkable call. Even a remarkable reach. The 25-year-old had been playing well coming in – but not that well. He had recorded top-25s in four of his past eight events. Maybe the person who picked McNealy noticed that his only prior top-5 on Tour came last year at Pebble Beach, and that the Stanford product used to live adjacent to the course. McNealy moved from 189th in the world rankings to a career-high 126th.

Patrick Cantlay
Cantlay tied for third and, ho-hum, no surprise. He now has a win, a second and a third in past five starts, with the other two being top-20s. He's really a threat every week he plays. He's now back inside the top 10 of the OWGR at No. 8.

Nate Lashley
Lashley deserved better than a tie for fifth. He had at least a share of the lead for a good chunk of Sunday, including when he hit his drive into the fairway on the par-4 16th. Ten minutes later, he walked off the green with a devastating triple-bogey, which included a four-jack from inside 13 feet. He had looked so good all afternoon, and his quality result followed up a top-20 at Phoenix. He has only recorded three top-20s since the 2020 WMPO, so he had clearly fallen on hard times. Let's see whether he has fully turned a corner. He sure did look good. He's now back up to 115th in the world.

Paul Casey
Casey tied for 12th in Saudi Arabia last Sunday, then got on a plane  -- guessing he didn't fly coach -- to the West Coast, and the travel didn't affect him. He opened with a 68 and wound up tied for fifth, continuing an outstanding start to 2021. He finished eighth at The American Express and won in Dubai before his latest two results. He will be among the few top golfers skipping Riviera this week.

Russell Knox
Knox found controversy on his very first hole, when his ball moved while he was getting ready to hit from the fairway. He got a favorable (and questionable) ruling from officials, then found out a few holes later that he would, in fact, be assessed a one-shot penalty. But he stayed the course and tied for seventh with a 2-under 70, just his second top-10 in 21 months. The other was at the Safeway Open at the start of this season, so don't expect this week to be a launching point for Knox. He's still ranked outside the top 200.

Jason Day
After opening 2021 with missed cuts at Torrey Pines and Phoenix, Day did what he always does at Pebble Beach: do well. He tied for seventh with four rounds in the 60s. He needed that to stay inside the top 50 of the OWGR and qualify for the WGC event in two weeks. Day's overall play indicates it won't be long before he tumbles outside the top 50, though.

Max Homa
Homa was a mess after the restart in June. He made only four of 12 cuts, and only a tie for third at the 3M Open saved him from a greater free fall in the world rankings. He's now made five straight cuts dating back to the end of last season and finished tied for seventh at Pebble. He also had top-25s at The American Express and the Farmers InsuranceOpen. It may be a West Coast thing; it may not. We'll find out soon enough.

Charley Hoffman
Hoffman was coming off two WDs and a missed cut in the prior three weeks. With a tie for seventh that saw him close with a 6-under 66, it appears his back ailment is in the past. In 21 appearances since the restart, Hoffman has missed the cut or withdrawn nine times, but he also has eight top-25s. They tend to come in weaker fields, but not all. It's good info to have.

Tom Hoge
Hoge found himself in the final group with Spieth and Lashley but couldn't get anything going and finished solo 12th. He didn't play badly; he shot a 1-under 71, albeit while other guys were going 4-, 5- 6-and even 7-under. He had a very strong stretch last year around this time but then fell completely apart over the rest of the year. Don't get too excited.

Cameron Davis
Davis was priced at $9,000 on DraftKings, and you had to take a big gulp to bite at that price. And then he opened with a 74. But he finished 67-69-68 to tie for 14th. That was not quite enough to justify that hefty salary, but it was another great week for the 25-year-old Aussie. He's now made eight of nine cuts this season, with two top-10s and a third top-25. He's up to 136h in the world -- far off his career best, but his highest standing in about two years.

Chris Kirk
Kirk has not relaxed one iota since securing his Tour card in the final start of his Major Medical Extension. That was when he tied for second at the Sony Open. Since then, he was T16 at the The American Express and, following a missed cut, he tied for 16th again at Pebble Beach. He surely has some fantasy value.

Matthew NeSmith
NeSmith jumped from $6,500 on DraftKings two weeks ago at Phoenix to $8,000 at Pebble Beach, and even in a weak field, it took a leap of faith to jump on board. When he opened bogey-bogey-bogey on Thursday morning, and coming at the easier Spyglass Hill track, well, that leap was more like a fall off a cliff. He finished the round with a 74, but closed 67-70-69 to tie for 16th. Impressive stuff.

Jim Furyk
The biggest surprise was not that the 50-year-old tied for 21st -- it was that he wasn't first in driving accuracy and greens in regulation. We're kidding, really. He was actually second and third, respectively. It goes to show that on a short course in a weak field, there's still room to roster Furyk. There will be a few more tournaments like that this season.
 
Akshay Bhatia
He wound up tied for 30th after opening with an 8-under 64, but that hardly matters right now. The 19-year-old is showing he can compete on Tour. This was his fifth tournament of the season and his third made cut. He is still relying on sponsor's invites, and his limit is seven, so it doesn't seem we will be seeing too much more of him -- unless he can deliver a top-10 or better. He moved from 987th in the world rankings to 818th.

Brandt Snedeker
Snedeker offered a glimmer of hope with a tie for 32nd at the Farmers Insurance event. But it was erased with a missed cut at Pebble. He's 40, which is far from a death sentence in golf, and he likely has some good weeks ahead. But, who can predict when they'll happen? You might need to stay away until the Wyndham Championship.

Rickie Fowler
Fowler opened 2021 with a top-25 at The American Express, but since then has gone T53-MC-MC, with a  trunk-slam at Pebble Beach. He's now dropped below Jordan Spieth in the world rankings at No. 66 and thus, by default, taken over the mantle of the saddest position in golf. He's now gone 13 months without a top-10. But as we are seeing with Spieth, it's possible for Fowler to return to glory.

Phil Mickelson
Mickelson had been good for about two or three quality weeks a year, and one of them was always at Pebble Beach, where he had finished top-3 four of the five previous years. This year, he finished 151st, with a hideous 80 on Friday. You can't even consider him for the Masters now. It's sad to see, but it's time for him to spend most his time on the Champions Tour, where he'd be fun to watch and great for ratings.