Weekly Recap: Brian Leaves 'Em Cryin'

"Bomb and gouge" is all the rage in golf these days, with Bryson DeChambeau the poster boy. Brian Gay couldn't be more different from DeChambeau, and his golf game couldn't be more different from bomb and gouge. One thing the two golfers have in common, though, is that they both are recent winners on the PGA Tour. 

The soon-to-be 49-year-old Gay won the Bermuda Championship over big-hitting 26-year-old Wyndham Clark by birdieing the first playoff hole at Port Royal Golf Course on Sunday.

Gay is among the shorter hitters on Tour, but on a course only 6,800 yards -- and playing in an extremely weak field -- he was able to get by. He's also among the better putters, even at an age when the dreaded yips can take hold, and that's always okay.

Gay's fifth PGA Tour win and first in seven years highlighted a banner week for some older golfers, one even much older than Gay. Fred Funk -- at 64 years old -- made the cut averaging only 243 yards off the tee. In comparison, Gay's 287-yard average was practically DeChambeau-like.

With a get-it-in-the-fairway, get-it-on-the-green style of play, Gay's game might be called "senior golf." Now 13 months from becoming eligible for the Champions Tour, he can steer clear of, yes, senior golf if he so chooses. The win in Bermuda locked up his PGA Tour card through the 2022-23 season.

At $6,300 on DraftKings, Gay is the lowest-priced winner in recent memory. He was not such a crazy pick, though, as he tied for third at Port Royal last year. In fact, Gay had a third-place finish each of the past four seasons -- at the Zurich Classic (2018-19), the RSM Classic (2017-18) and the Barbasol Championship (2016-17) -- so this wasn't completely out of nowhere, and Gay can continue to be a lineup consideration under the right circumstances. He's finished in the top 125 four years running and now obviously will make it five.

The win was his first since 2013 at what is now the American Express. That was the last time he played the Masters, but he'll be back next April (but not next week). He also won in 2008 and twice in 2009, when he reached his highest world ranking of 35th. He now stands at 180th.
 
He won on Sunday really the only way he can. He hit a wedge to three feet on 18 to birdie and tie Clark at 15-under, then sank a 12-footer for birdie on 18 on the first playoff hole to foil someone young enough to be his son.

"I've always known I have the game to compete," Gay told reporters afterward. "It's easy to doubt yourself. The players are so good and so young. A lot of them are my daughter's age."

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Wyndham Clark
Clark is a lot like Bryson DeChambeau in that he's a long hitter but also a very good putter – only, you know, about 130 spots behind DeChambeau in the world rankings. It's a great combination to possess, and it almost paid off for Clark's maiden PGA Tour win. He ranked second in driving distance and fourth in putts per GIR. Clark was playing very well before the spring stoppage, never got it going after the restart, but now has put together two great starts in a row after a T13 at the Shriners.

Ollie Schniederjans
When you look for Schniederjans' player page on pgatour.com, you'll find it under the Korn Ferry Tour players. After a couple of great years on the big tour, he couldn't sustain it and got only one start last year – a missed cut in Bermuda. He returned this year and finished solo third, going a long way to returning to the PGA Tour. It not only moved him from outside the top-400 OWGR to inside the top-300, the top-10 also got him into this week's field in Houston.

Denny McCarthy
McCarthy shot 63 on Sunday to zoom up the leaderboard into a tie for fourth, equaling his best finish ever on Tour. He's always been a great putter – he led the Tour the past two seasons – but it's never been enough. He's one of the shorter hitters and has been getting shorter in relation to everyone else four years' running now. That hurts his approach numbers. In weak field on a short course that puts a premium on putting, this was McCarthy's week to get his first win. He came close. 

Doc Redman
Redman is younger than Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland and was the 2017 U.S. Amateur champion. He obviously hasn't reached their heights, but he has the pedigree. For a while on Sunday, it looked as if he would break through for this first win. He stalled and ended in a tie for fourth. Unlike McCarthy, Redman has a strong tee-to-green game – he was fourth in accuracy off the tee and ninth in greens in regulation – suggesting his first win will come sooner than later. … Fun Doc Redman fact: His real first name is Doc.

Stewart Cink
Part of the Bermuda "age brigade," the 47-year-old Cink added a tie for fourth to a win, a tie for 12th and a tie for 64th already this season. He hasn't missed cut. Sure, he's done it mostly in weaker fields. But there are a lot of weeks on the PGA tour with weak fields.

Matt Jones
Jones had struggled to keep his card for a number of years, but he held on to it the past two years and is heading for third after a tie for fourth in Bermuda. He missed only five cuts in 23 starts last season, good to know when looking for a sixth to fil out your lineup. He also moved back inside the top-100 in the world rankings, at 98th.

Will Zalatoris
Zalatoris tied for 16th – more than enough to gain special temporary membership on Tour. But it's not a cure-all. It's not as if he can play whenever he wants. For instance, he's not in this week's Houston Open field – he needed a top-10 to bump someone. So even though he's 57th in the world, he's far back on the PGA Tour pecking order. What the STM does allow is for unlimited sponsor invites, and he should be getting a bunch of them, maybe as soon as the RSM Classic the week after the Masters.

Rasmus Hojgaard
The 19-year-old Dane stormed out of the European Tour restart with a win, a second and a third to soar into the top-100 OWGR and earn a U.S. Open invite (MC). He tried his hand in Bermuda and tied for 37th. Even though the field was very weak by PGA Tour standards, it wasn't much weaker than the UK Championship that Hojgaard won. He's already 74th OWGR, but he likely won't be able to make an immediate impact on the big tour, if he chooses that path.

Rafa Cabrera Bello
Missing the cut in this field was not befitting of a top-50 player. Which is fine, because the Spaniard is not in the top-50 anymore – he's not even in the top-80. It's been a terrible year for Cabrera Bello – a handful of top-25s but zero top-10s. He can salvage something with a good performance in the Masters.

Brendon Todd
Todd did the right thing in defending his championship from a year ago. The Bermuda title relaunched his career. But after playing the two previous weeks and with the Masters looming, it was not a good fit on the schedule. Todd missed the cut, and probably wasn't too upset about it.
 
Henrik Stenson
Not that Stenson was on anybody's radar for the Masters, but he withdrew Friday with a foot injury. Right now he's still in the field for the Houston Open, but that is tenuous. The veteran Swede, albeit in limited action, has shown little all year.

Charley Hoffman
We could've put Hoffman in the next paragraph – he's now 43 and his best days are far behind him, but he does still show flashes a few times a year. For instance, he was ninth at Torrey Pines, 13th at Bay Hill, seventh at the Workday, even 13th in a playoff event (the Northern Trust). Plus he was sixth at the Sanderson Farms a few weeks back. That's why a horrendous missed cut – he finished second to last after a 13-over 84 on Friday – was such a surprise.

The Senior Circuit

A lot of older guys – really older guys – did really well in Bermuda. Sure, it was a very weak field on a very short course, but they still beat a lot golfers maybe half their age. There was the 48-year-old Gay, of course, plus Cink and Jones. There was also 49-year-old Padraig Harrington – he tied for 26th. There was 42-year-old Luke Donald, who tied for 40th. There was Hunter Mahan, who is only 38 but we would have -- tongue in cheek -- bet he was like 55. He tied for 65th, which may not sound like much – and it isn't – but he's already made two cuts this year and making zero last year. But the granddaddy of them all (figuratively, as far as we know), was 64-year-old Fred Funk, who tied for 59th. He's only the fourth player to ever make a cut at 64 or older, joining Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson. That's not too shabby for Funk, who dusted his own son, Taylor Funk, by 13 shots while playing together the first two rounds.