This article is part of our Weekly PGA Recap series.
It became clear pretty quickly on Sunday that the final round of the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP would be a three-man race. Which meant that someone who hadn't won in a long time was going to win. Keegan Bradley and Andrew Putnam hadn't tasted victory since 2018, remarkably leaving fallen star Rickie Fowler as the most recent winner among the trio.
Fowler winning would've overwhelmingly been the biggest and best story after years of his decline. And even though that didn't happen -- Bradley won by a single stroke over the other two -- the biggest takeaway from Narashino Country Club in Japan has to be promising signs of a Fowler resurgence.
Let's talk Bradley first. We had written multiple times that if he could putt only a little bit, his elite ball striking would do the rest. He had moved to 44th in the world in large part because his putting got much better last season. Bradley continued that trend at the ZOZO, finishing sixth in the field in putting average. Add that to four rounds in the 60s and a ranking of third in greens and regulation -- there was no ShotLink data -- and you get a winning score of 15-under-par.
Bradley will move back into the top 25 in the world rankings, at No. 23, for the first time in eight years. This was his first win in 100 starts since 2018 when he surprisingly won the BMW Championship. He has been ranked as high as 10th in
It became clear pretty quickly on Sunday that the final round of the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP would be a three-man race. Which meant that someone who hadn't won in a long time was going to win. Keegan Bradley and Andrew Putnam hadn't tasted victory since 2018, remarkably leaving fallen star Rickie Fowler as the most recent winner among the trio.
Fowler winning would've overwhelmingly been the biggest and best story after years of his decline. And even though that didn't happen -- Bradley won by a single stroke over the other two -- the biggest takeaway from Narashino Country Club in Japan has to be promising signs of a Fowler resurgence.
Let's talk Bradley first. We had written multiple times that if he could putt only a little bit, his elite ball striking would do the rest. He had moved to 44th in the world in large part because his putting got much better last season. Bradley continued that trend at the ZOZO, finishing sixth in the field in putting average. Add that to four rounds in the 60s and a ranking of third in greens and regulation -- there was no ShotLink data -- and you get a winning score of 15-under-par.
Bradley will move back into the top 25 in the world rankings, at No. 23, for the first time in eight years. This was his first win in 100 starts since 2018 when he surprisingly won the BMW Championship. He has been ranked as high as 10th in the world.
Bradley finished top-10 this past season at both THE PLAYERS and U.S. Open. So he's been on the rise. Getting back to 10th in the world seems overly optimistic, but creeping into the top 20 is very doable -- thanks to his putting.
Now, to Fowler.
He remained one of the most popular and important golfers even while plummeting outside the top-150 in the world rankings and going winless since 2019 in Phoenix. Things came to a head at the end of last season after he missed the playoffs for the second straight year. He parted ways with longtime caddie Joe Skovron (now with Tom Kim, talk about a sweet gig) and returned to his old swing coach in famed Butch Harmon.
In just a few weeks, Fowler finished T6 at the Fortinet, missed the cut at the Shriners and now tied for second at the ZOZO to come close to rejoining the top-100 OWGR (now 106th). We'll see Fowler again this week at the relocated CJ Cup in South Carolina, this time in an absolutely loaded field.
Fowler surely had his chances to win on Sunday, and even though the stats show he was fourth in the field in putting average (and T5 in greens in regulation), he missed some makeable putts that could've really put pressure on Bradley.
Still, there's so much good for Fowler to fly home with. As recently as 2016-17, he ranked first on Tour in Strokes Gained: Putting. Last year, he ranked 161st. In the early going this season, he's ranked 53rd. It's not as if he had the yips; he's only 33. He just … well … no one really knows what the heck happened to Fowler.
Of course, two tournaments in the fall season are not nearly enough to declare a career renaissance. But Fowler was such a wildly popular player -- maybe behind only Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson not too long ago -- that it would be a ginormous golf story.
And that would be great news for the PGA Tour. As it continues its protracted battle with LIV Golf, the Tour could use all the superstars it could get its hands on.
While Bradley won and is back in the top 25 in the world rankings, it is Fowler who was the only superstar in contention in Japan on Sunday, half a world away geographically and a lifetime away from being ranked No. 4 in the world.
MONDAY BACKSPIN
Andrew Putnam
Putnam had been outside the top-200 in the rankings more recently than he'd been inside the top-100. But for the first time since the middle of 2020, Putnam has cracked the century barrier (now 79th). He had been playing great golf for three months before heading to Japan, and this tie for second was just an extension of that. Putnam has played well in big fields -- T5 and T23 in the first two playoff events in August -- so we will chalk up this surge to improved play, not just improved results in poor fields.
Emiliano Grillo
Like Putnam, Grillo has picked up the pace in the second half of 2022, with this solo fourth the latest example. Always a great ball striker, the key for Grillo is putting less horrible than usual. He accomplished that at the ZOZO, tying for ninth in putting average, to go along with second in greens in regulation.
Viktor Hovland
Hovland was the only highly ranked golfer to even be on the fringe of contention, and a good Sunday could've made the whole tournament different. But he basically treaded water with a 1-under 69 and tied for fifth. Hovland ranked only 12th in greens in regulation in this limited field, and that qualifies as an off week with the irons for him. He was 20th in the field in putting average, which is good enough when his irons are where they normally are.
Sahith Theegala
Theegala tied for fifth and he simply keeps progressing up the PGA Tour ladder. He still hasn't won, but he this latest result moved him up a couple of notches to 52nd in the world rankings. It was his second top-10 in three fall starts and, while nothing in golf is guaranteed, it sure seems as if Theegala's first win will come sooner rather than later.
Hayden Buckley
Buckley tied for fifth. He's having a great fall season, just like he did a year ago at the start of his rookie season on Tour. He was unable to sustain that once the fields got tougher in January. So we can't get too excited prematurely. But for now, Buckley has three top-20s in four starts in 2022-23.
Matthew NeSmith
NeSmith last week cracked the top-100 in the world rankings for the first time, following a runner-up at the Shriners. He keeps on keeping on with a tie for ninth, his third top-10 in a row. We have seen many golfers have great fall seasons only to disappear come January, but NeSmith's great iron play offers hope that he can remain relevant all season long.
Tom Hoge
Whatever happened to Hoge during a stretch of six straight missed cuts during the spring and summer appears to be out of his system. He tied for ninth in Japan, on top of last week's T4 at the Shriners, which was his third recent top-5 finish. After years of drifting in mediocrity, Hoge is firmly planted inside the top-40 in the world.
Ryo Hisatsune and Keita Nakajima
These were the two highest Japanese finishers in the field in tying for 12th (Hideki Matsuyama included) and justified their sponsor invites into the field – they did not get in for being in the top-8 on the Japan Tour money list. Hisatsune is still a teenager. This was his fifth straight top-13 showing – the other four on the Japan Tour – and he's ranked about 200th in the world. So he could be a comer. Nakajima is not much older at 22, and he just turned pro after a great amateur career. He played in the Masters, U.S. Open and Open Championship this year but missed all three cuts. He did make the cut at the Sony Open as an amateur back in January.
Tom Kim
Kim tied for 25th. Even someone who appears to be a generational talent, a supernova not even 21 years old, cannot do it every week. This might've been a proverbial "trap game" for the Korean, with the CJ Cup coming up this week.
Hideki Matsuyama
Matsuyama never got anything going after finishing second and first in the previous ZOZOs at Narashino. He tied for 40th. We surely expected a lot more, but we don't put any long-term concerns on this result.
Collin Morikawa
Morikawa shot three rounds in the 70s and tied for 45th. He wasn't a factor, as has been the case for virtually all of 2022. Still, he has had a number of high finishes that have helped him retain a top-10 spot in the OWGR.
DP World Tour
Adrian Otaegui won for the fourth time on the DP World Tour, by six strokes at the Andalucia Masters, but the headline here is that the Spaniard is a former LIV golfer. At least he appears to be former. Otaegui played in three LIV Golf tournaments, most recently in Boston over Labor Day, but not in the three subsequent events. It seems Otaegui was squeezed out as more big names joined the upstart tour. With three previous wins and a best ranking of 68th OWGR, Otaegui was no slouch. There weren't many big names in the Andalucia field, but there were Matt Fitzpatrick and Ryan Fox, both of whom missed the cut, and Robert MacIntyre (T9). Otaegui was among the LIV golfers who sued the DP World Tour back in July to get into the Scottish Open. The golfers won a temporary injunction, got to play and will continue to be able to play until a full hearing is held in February.
