Monday Scramble: Before new season begins (on Thursday), let’s hand out awards

Dustin Johnson wins the FedExCup, the Player of the Year race gains some clarity, the Tour Championship format makes us a believer, we hand out some end-of-season awards and more in this week’s edition of Monday Scramble:

1. The FedExCup leader heading into the Tour Championship, Dustin Johnson went wire to wire at East Lake to capture the season-long prize for the first time.

TAKEAWAY: This was surprisingly tense on the back nine, as Johnson’s five-shot cushion was whittled down to just two strokes. Then he rammed home a 20-foot par save on 13. Then he pured a 5-iron on the hardest hole on the course – and another on the watery par-3 15th, the one hole that could have led to a big number. Finally, he sealed the title with a massive tee shot down the center stripe on 18, leading to a final birdie and a three-shot win over Xander Schauffele and Justin Thomas.

Johnson has now gone 2-1-2-1 over his last four starts, a run that has seen him bank more than $18.7 million.

2. With his FedExCup title, Johnson likely locked up the PGA Tour Player of the Year award.

TAKEAWAY: Coming into the week it was a dead heat between Johnson and Thomas, with Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa and even Webb Simpson also having a viable case for the top player award if they won the Tour Championship.

A tale of the tape between the leading two contenders:

JOHNSON

• 3 wins (including two in the playoffs)
• Playoff loss
• 7 top-10s in 14 starts
• 2nd in the season’s only major championship
• 9^th in strokes gained total
• 8th in scoring average

THOMAS

• 3 wins (including a WGC event)
• Playoff loss
• 10 top-10s in 18 starts
• 37^th in the season’s only major championship
• 2^nd in strokes gained total
• 3rd in scoring average

Player of the Year is voted on by the Tour membership, and it’ll be hard to overlook what Johnson has done since June: A win against a strong field at the Travelers, then in his last four starts – against the strongest fields – he was beaten only by Collin Morikawa’s late eagle at the PGA and Jon Rahm’s 60-foot bomb at the BMW. Thomas’ season was spectacular, but his major/playoff performance (T37-T49-T25-T2) will likely hurt him.

This scribe has a POY vote, too, through the Golf Writers Association of America, but it’s for the entire 2020 golf year. And there’s still plenty to play for over the final four months.

3. Xander Schauffele posted the lowest 72-hole score at East Lake, but he wasn’t credited with a win. He finished in a tie for second with Thomas, three shots behind Johnson, the FedExCup champion.

TAKEAWAY: Here’s how the gross leaderboard would have looked:

• Xander Schauffele: -15
• Scottie Scheffler: -12
• Justin Thomas: -11
• Dustin Johnson: -11
• Tyrrell Hatton: -10

But that’s not how the FedExCup champion is determined. Johnson started the week at 10 under, Schauffele at 3 under, and it would have taken crazy-low scores to steal the title.

And that’s fine! Even though the Tour Championship winner receives $15 million and is credited with an official victory, it is, above all, about the crowning of a season-long champion. And Johnson is deserving of that title. He’s the first No. 1 seed to win the FedExCup since 2009.

Even Schauffele, the gross champion, was OK with how it turned out: “He deserves to win.”

For the second year in a row, the top players all season long battled for the title at East Lake while a red-hot semi-longshot still had a chance to win.

Entering the final round last year, Brooks Koepka led by one over Rory McIlroy – the two protagonists of the 2018-19 season.

This year, Johnson was five shots clear but soon was joined by Thomas and Rahm – all of the leading men of this season.

That means the system is working.

Is it perfect? No season-long competition ever is. A player could conceivably win the Grand Slam but lose his FedExCup lead with a two-shot swing on the first hole of the Tour Championship. But it’s infinitely better than all of the confusing math that used to overshadow the season finale.

Rename it the “FedExCup Championship” – the Tour Championship has a storied history and still feels like a Very Serious Tournament – and much of the awkwardness is gone.

4. After becoming a father earlier in the week, Rory McIlroy played in the Tour Championship and tied for eighth.

TAKEAWAY: The defending FedExCup champion came into East Lake with no expectations – he hadn’t picked up a club since he and wife Erica welcomed their first child, daughter Poppy, last Monday.

You wouldn’t have known it in the first round, when he opened with 64, but he never seemed to recover from this shocker of a shot to end Day 2. (Though, to be fair, anyone who has played out of Bermuda rough can relate. Ball sinks to the bottom. Grass all around it. Straight-faced iron. It’s brutal.)

With the tie for eighth, McIlroy snapped a streak of eight consecutive finishes outside the top 10 – his worst stretch in more than a decade. How the new #GirlDad plays over the next few months, and how often, will be interesting to watch. It was unusual to see him in such a rut.

WHAT ELSE WE’RE TALKING ABOUT ...

U.S. Open Preview ... In Spain: Andalucia Masters. American John Catlin won the European Tour event at 2 over par, just the third time in the past 25 years that a non-major on that tour was won with an over-par score. Two of those three instances came at Valderrama.

And Then There Was One: Mark Calcavecchia. Calc, who played two weeks ago at the PGA Tour Champions event in the Ozarks, tweeted that he has “somehow” tested positive for the coronavirus.

Welcome Back: PGA Tour Champions fans. Spectators will be permitted to attend this week’s Sanford International in South Dakota. They’ll be temperature screened before entering and encouraged, but not required, to wear masks while on-site. Though this isn’t 40,000 fans a day at a Tour event, it’s the first step and should nonetheless be an interesting experiment.

Back, Back Again: Jimmy Johnson. Thomas confirmed after the Tour Championship that his regular looper will be back on the bag next week at the U.S. Open. Jim “Bones” Mackay has caddied for Thomas ever since Johnson fell ill at the Memorial.

Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate: Southern California. The ANA Inspiration gets underway Thursday, with temperatures expected to be in the 100s. Caddies won’t be wearing the traditional white jumpsuit and can take carts to beat the heat.

So That Didn’t Exactly Work Out: Webb Simpson. He opted to skip the BMW in order to rest for the Tour Championship and next week’s U.S. Open. That move cost him only one spot in the standings, to No. 4, but he didn’t play his best at East Lake – he was only 3 under for the four rounds. That’s more than a $3 million slide. He’s still a no-brainer pick for Winged Foot.

Blown Fantasy Pick of the Week: Bryson DeChambeau. The Tour’s brawny basher had a terrible postseason run, capped by a 22nd-place finish at East Lake where he had a rough week on the greens and dropped 14 spots. Sigh.

THIS SEASON’S AWARD WINNERS ...

Player of the Year Season: Dustin Johnson. No one with DJ’s credentials and talent can ever be overlooked, but entering his age-36 season it almost seemed as though we were starting to take him for granted. Then he played the way he did this summer, and he offered a boldfaced reminder that he’s one of the best players of his generation and still has plenty more to offer. For as much flack as the FedExCup has gotten over the years, DJ recognized its importance and, after several close calls, desperately wanted the line on his résumé, if not the $15 million more added to his account. He closed the season 2-1-2-1 – and might do even more damage with two majors this fall.

Rookie of the Year Season: Scottie Scheffler. There was a debate to be had, with fellow newcomer Viktor Hovland winning in Puerto Rico, but Scheffler sealed the title with his postseason play: A 59 in Boston, then a fifth-place finish at the Tour Championship. (Jordan Spieth is the only other rookie to finish in the top 10 at East Lake.) In his first season, on courses he’s never seen, Scheffler racked up seven top-10s, 13 top-25s and the 12th-best scoring average on Tour.

Story of the Season: PGA Tour salvaging its season. They did it, somehow. They did it because of persistence and discipline and personal accountability. They did it because of buy-in from players and caddies, from host communities and local officials. They did it because of cooperation from Tour officials and media members and volunteers. The PGA Tour lost nearly a dozen tournaments this season – and untold millions of dollars – but they were one of the first major sports to return, didn’t suffer a single significant setback and still crowned a season-long champion. In 14 events, the Tour took conducted 3,652 on-site player and caddie tests. There were only seven on-site player positives and just three among the caddies. Take a bow, all involved – and, now, let’s keep it going.

Breakout Player of the Year Season: Daniel Berger. A member of the heralded high school Class of 2011, Berger had been a forgotten man the last few years because of injuries. But since the restart, outside of DJ, no one has been better: a win, three other top-3s and now even a little controversy after he missed the qualifying cutoff for the Masters and, barring something unforeseen, will be sitting at home for the final major of the year – despite being ranked 13th in the world.

Comeback Player of the Year Season: Brendon Todd. In late 2018 he thought about giving up the game and starting a pizza business. Swing coach Bradley Hughes got him back on track, and this season Todd won two events and nearly a few others, finishing 20th in the FedExCup and rocketing to a career-best 39th in the world. Hopefully he’s here to stay this time.

Storyline for Next Season: Bryson DeChambeau. The most talked-about player of this season, DeChambeau proved that his bulked-up, bombs-away approach can work on regular Tour setups, and even at a penal course like Harding Park. But can he take his game to the next level and dial in his irons and wedges with all of that new muscle? That remains to be seen. Like most things with Bryson, don’t bet against him.

Tournament of the Year Season: PGA Championship. Once we got over the initial weirdness of not having fans at a major, the TV product wasn’t all that much different. (Check back in November for the Masters.) The final round saw nine different players hold a share of the lead, and it felt like a worthy winner with rising superstar Collin Morikawa pulling off some legendary shots down the stretch.

Shot of the Year Season: Collin Morikawa. For sheer significance, it’s tough to top this one. Tied with three holes to play at the PGA Championship, the 23-year-old didn’t look like a guy who was playing college golf just a year ago. He hit his patented butter-cut drive to 7 feet on 16, then hearted the eagle putt to give himself a comfortable cushion on his way to his first major title.

Moment of the Year Season: Final 30 minutes of the BMW Championship. First, it was DJ holing an improbable 40-footer to set up a 1 vs. 2 playoff with Jon Rahm. Then, in overtime, something even more unlikely: Rahm making a 66-foot sidewinder to deny DJ another title and capture the second leg of the playoffs.

Disappointment of the Year Season: Jordan Spieth. We’re long past the concerned stage, after Spieth continued to regress, now three-plus years removed from his last victory. Not even a 3 ½-month mid-season break could get him right. He posted three top-10s but had no realistic chances to win. He ranked outside the top 90 off the tee (165th), approaching the green (97th) and putting (105th). It’s time for changes, big changes, but so far he has resisted.

Disappointment of the Year Season, Honorable Mention: Tiger Woods. Yes, I know, Tiger still won No. 82 and was the best player for the U.S. Presidents Cup team, but the rest of the season? Not great! In six starts in 2020, he had only one top-30, didn’t factor at the PGA, didn’t PLAY in two WGCs, failed to qualify for the Tour Championship again and maybe (let’s just take his word for it) would have been healthy enough for his Masters defense. As buoyant as we all felt watching Woods play chess at Royal Melbourne, his play these past few months has been equally uninspiring. Now ranked 20th in the world, Woods is not a top-tier major favorite anymore and his participation in the 2021 Olympics is looking less and less likely.