It took five days but we finally got a winner at THE NORTHERN TRUST on Monday evening when Tony Finau ousted Cameron Smith in a playoff.  This marked the 14 consecutive week on the PGA Tour where the eventual winner trailed after each of the first three rounds.  A huge win for Finau, only the second of his career, who had failed so many times on Sunday’s to earn a victory (8 runner ups and 39 Top 10 finishes between his two wins), so it took a Monday for him to get the job done.  Tony is on top of the FedEx Cup standings with Jon Rahm nipping at his heels as Collin Morikawa dropped with his missed cut at THE NORTHERN TRUST.  It could get quite interesting as we head to the second tournament of these playoffs, the BMW Championship.

Jon Rahm won the 2020 BMW Championship in a playoff over Dustin Johnson.  He and the 68 other guys in the Top 70 of the FedEx Cup Playoff standings head to Baltimore for the first time since 1962 for the second to last event of the 2020-2021 PGA Tour season.  Caves Valley Golf Club plays host to the 2021 BMW Championship, it opened in 1991 and is a par 72 that stretches out 7,542 yards. It was renovated for these pros with more length, freshly restored bunkers, and additional rough added. Depending on how long the rough will be, the main defense on this course are the bunkers.  There is little to no course history to go off of this week but Brian Harman, Billy Horschel, Dustin Johnson, Chris Kirk, Luke List and Webb Simpson all played on the 2007 Palmer Cup team at Caves.  It has changed a lot since that event though.  I’ll be focusing my picks on recent form and course fit. 

Jon Rahm at the 2020 BMW Championship

This is the final chance for players to get into the Tour Championship last week in East Lake.  The Top 30 golfers in the FedEx Cup standings will get invited to participate and have a chance at the $15 million dollar prize to the winner.  Kevin Kisner, Keegan Bradley, Si Woo Kim, Cameron Tringale, Cam Davis, Brian Harman, Alex Noren, Sergio Garcia, Shane Lowry, Paul Casey, and Webb Simpson are all players sitting on the outside looking into the field as they tee it up this weekend in Charm City.  All of those players can get into the field of 30 next week especially when you look at some of the jumps that players have made over the last couple weeks.  Just look at guys who played their way into the BMW field after their performance at THE NORTHERN TRUST.  Tom Hoge from 108 to 48, Keith Mitchell from 101 to 63, Alex Noren from 91 to 43, Erik van Rooyen from 76 to 45 and Harold Varner pulled it off going from 72 to 55. We also saw a few guys play their way out of the BMW field like Matt Wolff, Matt Fitzpatrick, Tyrrell Hatton, Martin Laird and Troy Merritt.  It’ll be a fight to the finish this weekend and I can’t wait to check this course out.

Patrick Reed has announced that he’s withdrawing from the BMW Championship as he deals with bilateral pneumonia.  We wish him well.

It is typical August weather in Baltimore, Maryland, hot and humid.  The temps are going to be in the low 90s throughout the weekend with chance of afternoon showers.  I live only about an hour from this course and I can you, it is going to be brutal out there.  I feel like the morning players will have the advantage both days because they won’t deal with as much heat or the afternoon storms that come from all that humidity.

The playbooks will slowly shrink as we move into the playoffs over the next few weeks. The Tour Championship will just be core plays that week because of the small field that will participate.

ONE & DONE PICK: Justin Thomas

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