Weekly Recap: Keeping Up With the Joneses

Seven years ago, Matt Jones waited until the last possible moment to qualify for his first Masters, winning the Houston Open just four days prior. This time, he didn't cut it quite so close – he gave Augusta officials three weeks' notice that he'd be coming.

Jones rode a first-round 9-under 61 all the way to victory at the Honda Classic, and thus at 40 years old will play in his second Masters. He wound up at 12-under, five shots clear of a quintet of runners-up. While it kind of feels as if Jones went wire-to-wire, remember that he actually feel six strokes behind Aaron Wise early on Saturday before Wise plummeted – all the way to a tie for 13th by Sunday night.

The Australian has played on the PGA Tour uninterrupted since 2008, making 330 career starts, yet he's had scant success. This was only his 28th top-10 and he's made a little more than 60 percent of his cuts. But he's back inside the top-50 in the world rankings at No. 49, not far from his personal best of 41st reached way back when he won the 2014 Houston Open.

"It's going to be nice. I can go prep for the Masters this time," Jones told reporters at PGA National. "Last time it was an absolute blur. I can't remember a thing about it, so I'm going to do some prep this time before."

What Jones surely recalls is that he missed the cut, and by three strokes.

This time could be different. There are signs that this season is among Jones' best, and that was even before he won the Honda. In only 16 starts, he's already earned more money than in any prior season, thanks also to two other top-10s and five other top-25s. He tied for eighth last month at Riviera – another tough track but with a far superior field than the one he faced this week. He's missed only one cut in his past 13 starts, playing a generally conservative game that is well-suited to making cuts.

Jones was ranked in the top-10 in bogey avoidance entering the Honda and, while he did have 10 bogeys across 72 holes, none of them were doubles. PGA National dispenses big numbers like few other tracks, with 261 double bogeys or worse on the week, even more than last year's Tour-leading 242.

On one hand, you might say Jones was fortunate to take advantage of a weak Honda field to reap all the rewards he's about to receive, although 12-under would have been good enough to win the Honda almost every year since it arrived at PGA National in 2007. (There's been one 13-under winning score and two other 12-unders, with every other victor in single digits.)

Of course, Jones isn't making any apologies for the competition, or for winning. Seven years without a victory is a long time. It's been seven years since he's been to Augusta.

"I can't really remember the golf course. I can't remember much about that week. It was all a blur, so I'm looking forward to getting some preparation on the course this year."
 

MONDAY BACKSPIN

DraftKings Prices
Jones cost $7,400, and he led a huge contingent of low-priced guys that finished high on the leaderboard. Thirteen of the top-18 cost $7,700 or less. What a week.
1) Matt Jones: $7,400
2) Brandon Hagy: $0 (got in field on Wednesday)
T3) Chase Seiffert: $6,200
T3) C.T. Pan: $6,300
T3) Denny McCarthy: $6,900
T3) Brendan Steele: $8700
T3) Russell Henley: $9,800
T8) Camilo Villegas: $6,100
T8) Sam Ryder $6,400
T8) Zach Johnson: $7,400
T8) Adam Hadwin: $7,700
T8) Sungjae Im $11,000
T13) Robert Streb $6,100
T13) Kevin Chappell $6,300
T13) Steve Stricker $6,800
T13) Aaron Wise: $7,600
T13) Cameron Tringale $9,100
T13) Adam Scott $10,100

Brandon Hagy
No. 348 in the world, never been inside the top-220, playing on his 30th birthday, best finish of his PGA Tour career by far … what a day and what a week for Hagy. As the eighth alternate, he didn't even get into the field until Wednesday, long after the DraftKings prices came out, and he closed with a 66 to finish second by himself. He's now up to 184th OWGR. Hagy came into the week as one of the longest but wildest drivers on Tour, ranked 212th in accuracy. That normally spells big trouble at PGA National. But while Hagy ranked third in driving distance, he was a respectable T43 in DA. 

Chase Seiffert
Priced at $6,200 on DraftKings and ranked 259th in the world, Seiffert notched his best result ever on Tour as part of the five-way tie for third (he had a solo fourth at the 2020 Workday that resulted in more OWGR points). It was Seiffert's third top-15 in 2021 alone, and it moved him to 210th in the world. He ranked second in the field in SG: Approach and sixth in SG: Tee-to-Green, which is really playing some good golf at a treacherous course.

Brendan Steele
PGA National is a great track for Steele, who now has top-5 results the past two years, including this latest T3. It's a course where ball striking is paramount and bad putting won't hurt you too much. But lo and behold, Steele ranked sixth in the field in SG: Putting. Steele has made all eight of his cuts in 2021 and is now 69th in the world rankings, his highest position since the summer of 2018.

Denny McCarthy
McCarthy let a great first two days get away from him at THE PLAYERS, but not this week. While he did have a bad Saturday, he rebounded on Sunday to finish in that big tie for third. It's his best finish ever on Tour. One of the best putters around ranked eighth in the field, but what really did it for McCarthy this week was ranking sixth in SG: Around-the-Green. He's back inside the top-200 OWGR at 173rd.

Russell Henley
Henley is inching ever so close to the top-50 in the world to qualify for the Masters. He has one more week to do it. After tying for third, he stands at 55th. It was his first top-10 since the CJ Cup and ZOZO back to back last October. Henley now heads to the WGC-Match Play. Of course, if he doesn't crack the top-50 there, he'll have a final chance for Augusta if he plays and wins the Valero Texas Open in two weeks.

C.T. Pan
Pan had pretty much fallen off the map since his surprise and only win at the 2019 RBC Heritage, a win that got him into the 2020 Masters. Incredibly, he tied for seventh at Augusta, but immediately went back into a funk, missing six of his next eight cuts leading up to the Honda. He wound up in the T# logjam. Thanks to that tie for seventh at the November Masters, he'll be back next month.

Adam Hadwin
The Canadian had been steadily dropping in the rankings, without a top-10 since the Rocket Mortgage last July. But that streak ended when Hadwin secured part of a five-way tie for eighth. He's made six of seven cuts in 2021, and he had a top-25 at Torrey Pines.

Camilo Villegas
Villegas endured tragedy with the passing of his 22-month-old daughter last summer, and everybody has been rooting for him. Playing in the final start of his major medical extensions, he needed to finish third to get 135 FedEx Cup points to retain his card. He came up just short, about 60 points short, in the tie for eighth. But he got enough points for conditional status the rest of the season playing out of the 126-150 category. It's hard to believe the 2010 Honda champion's next birthday will be his 40th.

Zach Johnson
Another week, another made cut for the 45-year-old. Only this time, the check will be much larger with a tie for eighth. Johnson has made 14 cuts in a row, but this was his first top-10 in 2021. He's now close to returning to the top-100, at 107th. He won't be in the Match Play this week, but of course we'll see him at Augusta in three weeks. The 2007 Masters champ has made his past three cuts there and 10 of 16 all-time.

Sam Ryder
Ryder got it to 9-under early on Sunday, within two of Jones, and it appeared he could really challenge for his first PGA Tour win. But he lost four strokes to par the rest of the way to fall into the tie for eighth. Still, it was among his best results ever on Tour, along with another recent top-10 at Torrey Pines. But those are the long bright spots in what has been a brutal stretch. In his past 25 starts dating to the 2020 Arnold Palmer, Ryder has missed 16 cuts.

Aaron Wise
Normally, a top-15 for a player who hadn't so much as finished in the top-60 so far in 2021 would be viewed as a success no matter what. But this might be the exception. Wise actually opened up a ginormous six-stroke lead on the front nine on Saturday, only to lose it all by the end of the round and then continued to tumble on Sunday. From that 14-under high-water mark, Wise played his final 31 holes in 10-over to plummet to a tie for 13th. A great ball striker who simply cannot putt (ranked 216th of 221 coming into the week), Wise found himself second in the field in putting before things went sideways. He wound up 20th in SG: Putting – still a great week for him. But it surely can't feel that way right now.

Kevin Chappell
Ranked in the 700s entering the week and on the comeback trail from injury, Chappell tied for 13th, his best result since the fall of 2018. This was only his 25th event since then. He has 12 starts left to gather about 154 FedEx Cup points to keep his card – he got 54 for the T13. It's doable but won't be easy. He moved from 720th OWGR to 543rd.

Chris Kirk
Another week, another top-25 for Kirk, though barely at T25. That's his fifth already in 2021, and he inched up to 73rd in the world rankings.

Phil Mickelson
Mickelson had a great week, notching his first top-25 (T25) since last summer's WGC-FedEx. Alas, he still dropped back outside the top-100 OWGR to 102nd. The Honda follows another made cut for Mickelson at The PLAYERS Championship. Make no mistake, even if he had not done well the past two weeks, he still has it in him to be in the mix at the upcoming Masters.

Rickie Fowler
Fowler made the cut and was in position to make a run on the weekend but instead went the opposite way, tumbling to a tie for 65th. Fowler is now ranked 90th OWGR and not playing this week, leaving only the Valero Texas Open the following week to qualify for the Masters. He would have to win at San Antonio to keep his streak of 10 straight Augusta visits in place. 

Byeong Hun An
Since An tied for fourth at last year's Honda, things have not gone well for him. He now has only one top-10 in the ensuing 12 months, adding a missed cut on Friday. An was inside the top-50 OWGR a year ago, but now is 87th. He always was a bad putter, and still is, but now his normally solid iron game has gone astray. Not good.

Bargain or Bust?
There were 37 golfers – more than one-quarter of the 144-man field -- priced $6,300 or under on DraftKings. Fourteen of them, almost 40 percent (37.8), made the cut. Chase Seiffert at $6,200 and C.T. Pan at $6,300 tied for third. Camilo Villegas at $6,100 tied for eighth. Robert Streb at $6,100 and Kevin Chappell at $6,300 tied for 13th. Brice Garnett at $6,300 tied for 25th. Even one $6,000 guy, Jimmy Walker, made the cut. We took a flyer on Hank Lebioda at $6,000 in the value picks, but he missed the cut badly. This is something we're going to try to track every week going forward to see how reliable the bottom-dwellers can be for your lineup. We suspect that a 37 percent success rate is high and is connected to the very weak field. This coming week won't be a good barometer because it's the Match Play, so we'll resume with the Valero Texas Open.