This article is part of our Weekly PGA Recap series.
The three-week stretch on the PGA Tour calendar between the Open Championship and the start of the playoffs is a real dead zone. Most of the top players who had been grinding since THE PLAYERS Championship in March wind up taking the entire time off to rest up. Tony Finau took another approach.
Wanting to qualify automatically for the Presidents Cup team -- which means finishing top-6 in those standings -- Finau opted to play in the 3M Open the week after the Open and then again this past week at the Rocket Mortgage Classic. It turned out to be a good plan, as Finau won both tournaments, completing the back-to-back Sunday at Detroit Golf Club.
Finau went lower than anyone else in the four-year history of the Rocket Mortgage Classic, shooting 26-under to defeat the trio of Patrick Cantlay, Cameron Young and Taylor Pendrith by five strokes.
The only thing keeping Finau from going for a three-peat is that he has decided to skip this week's regular-season-ending Wyndham Championship to finally rest up himself.
There were no top-10 golfers at the 3M and Cantlay was the only one in the field this past week. As such, the fields were incredibly weak -- so weak that Finau was able to move up only four spots in the world rankings across the two-week span, from 17th to 13th. There will be no top-10 players at the Wyndham event, either.
It's incredibly hard to win any week on the PGA Tour,
The three-week stretch on the PGA Tour calendar between the Open Championship and the start of the playoffs is a real dead zone. Most of the top players who had been grinding since THE PLAYERS Championship in March wind up taking the entire time off to rest up. Tony Finau took another approach.
Wanting to qualify automatically for the Presidents Cup team -- which means finishing top-6 in those standings -- Finau opted to play in the 3M Open the week after the Open and then again this past week at the Rocket Mortgage Classic. It turned out to be a good plan, as Finau won both tournaments, completing the back-to-back Sunday at Detroit Golf Club.
Finau went lower than anyone else in the four-year history of the Rocket Mortgage Classic, shooting 26-under to defeat the trio of Patrick Cantlay, Cameron Young and Taylor Pendrith by five strokes.
The only thing keeping Finau from going for a three-peat is that he has decided to skip this week's regular-season-ending Wyndham Championship to finally rest up himself.
There were no top-10 golfers at the 3M and Cantlay was the only one in the field this past week. As such, the fields were incredibly weak -- so weak that Finau was able to move up only four spots in the world rankings across the two-week span, from 17th to 13th. There will be no top-10 players at the Wyndham event, either.
It's incredibly hard to win any week on the PGA Tour, even in less-than-stellar fields. To do it twice in a row is still an admirable feat. The last to do it before Finau was Brendon Todd in 2019. But to illustrate the quality of the fields, the 3M -- with an OWGR-determined strength-of-field rating of 113 -- and the Rocket Mortgage -- at a more formidable 227 -- combined for 340, which still does not even add up to this year's Bryon Nelson, which checked in at 371.
As for Finau's Presidents Cup goal, he moved up from 11th to No. 7 in the standings with his 3M win, then to No. 6 with Sunday's win, overtaking Jordan Spieth. A great accomplishment, sure, but mission accomplished? Not quite. There's still time for Finau to fall out of the top six with the Wyndham and three playoff events to go. Even if he falls out of the top six, though, there's no question Finau would be a captain's pick.
Finau has been as high as No. 9 in the world. He's currently 13th. Which is pretty much right in our estimation.
Despite winning two in a row, it still seems that there are 10-to-12 golfers better than Finau.
In Finau's next start, likely at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in two weeks, most if not all of the 12 golfers ranked ahead of him will be in the field.
Finau might not agree, but it'll be good to see stronger fields again.
MONDAY BACKSPIN
Patrick Cantlay
Cantlay has been a top-10 machine – he now has 10 of them in 17 starts in 2021-22. This was his third runner-up. Technically, he also has a win, though that came in the Zurich team event with Xander Schauffele.
Cameron Young
Young's fantastic rookie season continues. This was his fifth runner-up and second in a row following the Open Championship. He's up to No. 17 in the world – just four spots behind Finau! There's little doubt Young will qualify for the Tour Championship at the end of the month, which as a reminder gets you into all the majors next year.
Taylor Pendrith
Pendrith missed 17 weeks with a broken rib beginning in March and this was his third tournament back. He finished in the top-15 in the first two – both opposite-field events – and now added this runner-up. It will be interesting to see the rookie's DFS pricing in the playoffs, and how he stacks up in far stiffer competition. But first he'll tee it up at the Wyndham on Thursday.
Stephan Jaeger
Last season's top Korn Ferry player entered the week with great uncertainty whether he'd be able to keep his PGA Tour card. He was 123rd in the point standings. But with his best finish ever on the PGA Tour, solo fifth, he is up to 94th and secure for next season.
Taylor Moore
Another rookie named Taylor, Moore didn't have quite the week that Pendrith did. But he did have his best finish on the PGA Tour with his solo sixth. Moore also moved to 76th in the FedEx Cup standings, so he can set his goals higher -- trying to qualify for a second playoff event, the BMW Championship, which will take the top-70 after the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
Joohyung Kim
Playing on a special temporary membership, the 20-year-old Korean has locked up his card for next season. And he did it with ease. Kim finished solo seventh on the week, and now has earned far more non-member FedEx Cup points than he needed. And it took him just eight PGA Tour events to do it. Kim is now up to No. 34 OWGR and could be on his way to becoming a worldwide force. And he will do so now as Tom Kim, which he said is his preferred name.
J.J. Spaun
Spaun tied for eighth. If the Tour Championship started today, Spaun would be in it, currently sitting 25th in the point standings. Remarkable.
Matt Wallace
The former top-25 player fell on really hard times, falling all the way beyond No. 160 in the world. There's now some good news. Following a tie for 26th at the 3M, Wallace tied for 10th on Sunday, and suddenly has a shot to make the playoffs. Wallace sits 124th in the point standings, and he'll be playing the Wyndham this week. He has missed more than half of his cuts this season, 11 of 20, but maybe he's found something.
Jason Day
Day doesn't have to worry about his card – he's exempt for two more seasons – and now he doesn't have to worry about the playoffs. Beginning the week in 117th place, Day tied for 17th to zoom to 106th in the point standings. He'll now play the Wyndham this week looking for a high finish that could move him closer to the top-70, which is where he'd need to be after the first playoff event to qualify for the second.
Danny Willett
Willett began the week in 126th place in the point standings, tied for 67th at the Rocket Mortgage and dropped a spot to 127th. The Wyndham will mean everything to Willett, whose five-year exemption for winning the 2016 Masters is expiring.
Webb Simpson
Simpson finished T69, ahead of only three guys who made the cut, further illustrating how far he's fallen over the past year or so. He's now ranked 74th in the world, down from 27th at the start of 2022. Next week's TPC Sedgefield course normally would be Simpson's wheelhouse -- he's finished in the top-7 in seven of the past eight years -- but that is not a certainty like it used to be.
Kevin Kisner
This was a bit of a head scratcher, Kisner missing the cut after last year's top-10 and he was well rested after being idle since the Open Championship. He lost almost two strokes to the field on the greens on Friday alone, and without a hot putter he has no shot to compete, much less contend. Can he figure it out in time for the Wyndham, another of his go-to tracks?
Matt Kuchar
It might be a bit of a surprise to learn that Kuchar not only is in the playoffs, but he's pretty much assured of playing in a second playoff event, too. It has not been a great season on the whole for Kuchar, who missed the cut at the Rocket Mortgage. Instead, he has used three great weeks – seventh at the Sony, runner-up at the Valero and third Harbour Town -- to make his entire year. Kuchar sits 53rd in the point standings.
Davis Riley
Riley returned last week after a long break and missed the cut. Now he's missed two in a row and it's fair to wonder about two things: Did he lose all of his momentum from earlier this summer and/or is he simply gassed toward the end of a long rookie season? We may find some answers this week at the Wyndham.
Maverick McNealy
McNealy played for a sixth straight week, which might explain missing the cut in a field that wasn't very deep. He wisely is skipping the Wyndham, even though he could use every point he could get. If the Tour Championship started today, McNealy would be in it, sitting 29th in the point standings.
Rickie Fowler
Fowler missed the cut. Not that this is the most critical aspect, but it's not a good look to miss when one of your big sponsors is the title sponsor of the tournament. The critical part is that Fowler fell from 122nd to 123rd in the point standings. So he's in real danger of missing the playoffs for the second straight year. He won't lose his card, however, as he's except for one more season.
