Expert Picks: WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play

Welcome to the Monday Finish where Marc Leishman became the second straight Australian to go wire-to-wire at Conway Farms, taking out the BMW Championship in record fashion in the penultimate event of a sensational FedExCup Playoffs. While Leishman took control from day one, the tournament still produced plenty of great side stories as the top 70 players in the FedExCup battled it out to be part of the 30 headed to East Lake and the TOUR Championship. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. The real abilities of Marc Leishman are finally being fully appreciated. Despite being a clear talent and more importantly one of the greatest humans on the planet, the man affectionately known simply as “Leishâ€� has not been in the mainstream consciousness of the majority of golf fans nearly enough. This despite being PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year in 2009. Despite winning the Travelers Championship in 2012. Despite almost winning the Masters in 2013. Despite being inside the top 6 of three of the last four Open Championships including a playoff loss at St Andrews in 2015. Despite winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard earlier this season. Despite all of this, the affable Aussie just doesn’t command the appreciation of the masses and throughout the tournament was referred to as underrated with commentators spending time explaining his resume. To be fair, Leishman is in the midst of his best season and previously may not have shown enough consistency in his game to get the real plaudits. This season, however, he has 15 top-25 results from 24 starts, his previous best was just nine in 2014. But his wire-to-wire win at Conway Farms showed everyone plenty. It came off the back of losing a two-shot lead on the back nine at the Dell Technologies Championship. The sort of loss that breaks some players. But not Leishman. He didn’t back down after an opening 62. He didn’t back down when countryman and former World No. 1 Jason Day joined him in Saturday’s final pairing. He didn’t back down when American favorite Rickie Fowler joined him in Sunday’s last pairing or when former U.S. Open winner Justin Rose pulled within two shots on the back nine Sunday. Instead, he pulled away and won by five. That’s some next level stuff. 2. Some of you may have raised an eyebrow at the comment above singing the praises of Leishman away from the course. You may think it is a little over the top. Perhaps I am biased. But let me try to enlighten you. Most know Leishman’s wife Audrey almost lost her life to toxic shock syndrome and sepsis in early 2015. She was given just a 5 percent chance of survival and Marc faced the real possibility of becoming a single dad to toddler sons Harvey and Ollie. He was a pillar of strength during this time and thankfully she pulled through and now they also share a newborn daughter Eva. But it’s not just this narrative that make him a “good blokeâ€� as those in his homeland would say. Leishman has always been one to consider others ahead of himself. And he’s never once changed from being a knockabout guy, no matter how much money or fame has come his way. It’s often been said Leishman could become the world’s best player and not change a single bit. He would still share a drink with the locals in both his adopted Virginia Beach home and his cherished Warrnambool back in Australia. Childhood friend Matty Kelly has been his caddie forever and the pair often hang out, with their young families, away from the course. Leishman treats everyone he meets like they’re the most important person is his space at the time. He flies coach to save money, so the rest can go into his Begin Again Foundation. He sent beer and pizza to the NBC cameraman who expertly dodged his last hole shank a few weeks ago because “If that ball hits him, it goes back in the hazard. He saved me a lot of money.â€� He’s a throwback, saying after his win that he’s not a “gym ratâ€� and “hasn’t been for a run on 10 years.â€� Instead he mows the putting green at his house everyday so he can go to his “nothing boxâ€� in his head. He can remain the same guy he’s always been. A legend. 3. We say it a lot but once again we have definitive proof that EVERY SHOT MATTERS on the PGA TOUR. One solitary FedExCup point. Well actually it was technically .72 of a point. That’s all that stood between Louis Oosthuizen and the TOUR Championship. Yep, the 2010 Open Champion winner was left to rue flu like symptoms in the opening rounds at the BMW Championship that had him near the back of the pack. Despite a wonderful 66-67 weekend as his health improved the South African ultimately finished just behind Jason Dufner in the season-long points race. Last year it was Rickie Fowler missing out by fractions. It is just further proof that you can never take a shot for granted on the PGA TOUR. 4. Still on the FedExCup scenarios we finally know the all-important top 5 in the standings heading to East Lake. The gentlemen who have their destiny in their own hands are Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Marc Leishman and Jon Rahm. If any of them win the TOUR Championship, they also win the FedExCup. You certainly cannot argue the validity of the top 3 getting this luxury. Spieth has won three times this season and been 2-2-T7 in the opening three Playoff events. Thomas has five wins on the season, including a Playoff event. Johnson has four wins on the season including a Playoff event. They clearly deserve a good shot at the FedExCup. Leishman is this season’s hot hand man. An earlier win in the year set things up. A third and a win in the Playoffs earned his shot. And then there is Rahm, in his first full season (not a rookie) he’s been awesome. A winner early in the campaign and then T3-T4-T5 during the Playoffs… that’s impressive. The “unluckyâ€� guy is Hideki Matsuyama. After entering the Playoffs as No. 1 thanks to three wins and three runner up results in a stellar season the Japanese star went CUT-T23-T47 in the Playoffs. He will be the 7th seed at East Lake. 5. If you’re picking an early favorite to win it all next week, it has to be top-seeded Jordan Spieth. Already a FedExCup and TOUR Championship winner in 2015 Spieth is looking to join Tiger Woods as a two-time FedExCup champion in just the 11th season of the competition’s existence. After going so close to winning in the opening two weeks Spieth once again finished inside the top-10 at the BMW Championship but you have the feeling he cleverly went into energy conserve mode once Leishman pulled out of reach. This is not to suggest he didn’t give his all, just to say he was mindful of expending more mental energy than necessary. Spieth is one of those ultimate competitors and while he is great mates with the likes of Thomas and co – come Thursday in Atlanta you can expect the game face. FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Marc Leishman’s winning score of 261 topped the previous BMW Championship record of 262 set by Tiger Woods (2007) and Jason Day (2015). His five-shot winning margin was the third biggest of the season behind seven-stroke victories by Hideki Matsuyama (World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions) and Justin Thomas (Sony Open in Hawaii). He is the 13th player to go wire-to-wire in the BMW Championship, and the second consecutive Australian to do it at Conway Farms (Jason Day 2015). 2. Leishman’s 15-under performance on the par 4s (best in field) was 11 strokes better than the field average (-4). Leishman tied Jason Day (THE NORTHERN TRUST 2015) with the best par 4 performance by a winner in FedExCup Playoffs history. He made a career-high 29 birdies and his opening 62 equaled his career low on the PGA TOUR. 3. Leishman’s short game was his strength. He ranked 2nd in strokes gained: around-the-green, outperforming the BMW field by 1.505 strokes per round. He was 4th in strokes gained: putting gaining 1.120 per round. 4. Justin Rose collected his 12th career runner-up finish on the PGA TOUR and third this season (Sony Open in Hawaii, Masters Tournament). He played 53 holes without a bogey until slipping up on the par-3 17th Sunday, just his third bogey this week (No. 4 and 17 during Round 1). Rose is one of 13 players to have qualified for the FedExCup Playoffs every season since their 2007 introduction. 5. Tony Finau, Sergio Garcia, Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay all played their way into the FedExCup top 30 at Conway Farms, matching the record for the Playoffs’ penultimate event. Louis Oosthuizen, Brendan Steele and two former FedExCup champions in Henrik Stenson and Bill Haas were the players to fall out. TOP THREE VIDEOS 1. Jason Day might not have replicated his 2015 victorious trip around Conway Farms but he certainly enjoyed the 17th hole with this ace. The Aussie won a new BMW but donated it back to the Evans Scholars. 2. There’s more than one way to hit it close. Just ask Brooks Koepka. Bank! 3. What do you bring Jordan Spieth for a gift?

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FORT WORTH — Sam Burns waited a while to win his fourth PGA TOUR title. He shot 5-under 65 on Sunday, another warm and wind-whipped day at the Charles Schwab Challenge. Burns finished the final round at 9 under par. He thought he needed to be 10 under. He watched the 16 players ahead of him fight the rustling breezes and quickening greens at Colonial Country Club. None of them lasted. RELATED: What’s in Burns’ bag? Nearly two hours after his round had ended, Burns defeated Scottie Scheffler in a playoff on the first extra hole, No. 18 at Colonial CC. Burns holed a 38-foot putt from the fringe behind the green that veered right and fell on its last revolution. Scheffler had a putt of 37 feet and missed. It seemed like it was over before it started. “I’m pretty exhausted,” the new champion said in the equally new tartan jacket given to the winners at Colonial. “Mentally I was prepared to go as long as it took. I don’t know if I could have done it physically. But mentally I was ready. When coach calls your name, you’ve got to be ready to play, and I think we did a really good job of being ready.” Burns, 25, started the final round in a tie for 17th place. He said he never looked at a leaderboard. He was seven shots behind Scheffler when he hit his first shot. “Who would have ever thought that you’d have a chance seven back?” Burns said. He went out in 5-under 30. He made one birdie and one bogey on the back nine. He posted one of 12 scores in the 60s. He had lunch with his family and kept an eye on the leaderboard. Scheffler, who held a two-shot lead after three rounds, plodded through an uneven afternoon of no birdies but clutch putts to save par. Scott Stallings and Brendon Todd started the round right behind him. They too struggled. Nearly everyone did. Harold Varner III threatened. Then he played the back nine. Varner shot a 45 to go from a grasp of the lead to a tie for 27th after an 8-over 78. “I did not envy them,” said Burns, who finished at 3:47 p.m. local time. Five players completed the par-5 11th hole at 10-under or better. None of them could stay there. Davis Riley was 11 under at the tee at No. 12; he finished at 8 under. Scheffler shot 72. Todd shot 71. Stallings shot 73. The few players who did manage Colonial at par or better started the round too far from the lead. “I think both days on the weekend the back nine played exceptionally hard,” Todd said. “I gave myself a lot of looks,” said Scheffler. “I just didn’t have it today.” Colonial played to an average of 72.3 sturdy strokes Sunday — more than two shots over par. Gusts of 30 mph raked the grounds. The players learned to time them, making their swings in the lulls. On the 18th tee, Scheffler stepped into his shot at the precise moment one of them rose. “A tornado,” Scheffler quipped to his caddie. “It’s just a really hard golf course and a lot of wind,” Burns said. When Scheffler reached No. 16, he and Burns were the only players left at 9 under. Burns excused himself from lunch and went to the gym, where he stretched for 15 minutes. He laced his golf shoes, rolled a few putts and prepared for the possibility that he would play more golf. An hour later, Burns was holding the trophy. He and his caddie had talked earlier in the week about how to confront Colonial, a course that opened in 1936. Many players, including those who’ve won the tournament, argue that Colonial requires few drivers. Better to take shorter clubs and aim for the widest parts of the fairways, they say. “The data does not back that up,” Burns said. “You need to push it around this golf course.” Burns did just that. He led the field in driving distance, averaging 297 yards off the tee. But he also was pushing it with his putter. He ranked second in Strokes Gained: Putting (4.1) in the final round. The combination of sheer distance and touch on the greens made the difference. Burns earned 500 FedExCup points, vaulting his total to 2,101. Only Scheffler, at 3,142, has more. “I feel like I need to win a handful more times to catch Scottie,” Burns said. He’d like to have the chance. He and Scheffler, identical in age, are close friends, Burns said. They shared a close embrace after playoff. “It’s going to be a fun story that we get to have for the rest of our careers,” Burns said.

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