Fall season of surprises on the PGA TOUR

Viktor Hovland's 12-foot birdie putt to win the Mayakoba Golf Classic presented by UNIFIN, the 12th and final event of the fall, moved him up to third in the FedExCup and put a bow on a wildly entertaining fall season. The fall also provided a lot of answers. We know whose biohacking has worked. (Take a bow, Bryson DeChambeau.) We know who won't stop knocking on the door. (Make room for Maui-bound Stewart Cink, Brian Gay, Jason Kokrak, Martin Laird, Carlos Ortiz, Robert Streb and - deep breath - Hudson Swafford.) We were entertained, again, by Tiger and Phil. Woods made a career-high 10 at the 12th hole at the Masters - then erased most of that mess with five birdies in his last six holes. Mickelson won the Dominion Energy Charity Classic for his second victory in as many starts on PGA TOUR Champions, then carried Charles Barkley on his back for 18 holes. We saw three new courses, with Houston's iconic Memorial Park in it for the long haul. THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK and ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD were stopgaps. Fittingly, there were new course records at all three. Xander Schauffele shot 8-under 64 at Shadow Creek; Richy Werenski 11-under 61 at Sherwood; Hideki Matsuyama 7-under 63 at Memorial Park. (Justin Thomas also shot 5-under 65 at the Winged Foot U.S. Open.) None of them won. Harry Higgs (Safeway Open), Scott Harrington (Sanderson Farms Championship) and Brendan Steele (Mayakoba Golf Classic) each made an albatross. None of them won, either. Korn Ferry Tour pro Will Zalatoris made a hole-in-one at the U.S. Open at Winged Foot, then earned Special Temporary Membership on TOUR, a different sort of victory. We witnessed brawn (DeChambeau at the U.S. Open; Dustin Johnson at the Masters), and brains (three 40-something winners). We saw a salute to the golden oldies (Fred Funk, 64, made the cut at the Bermuda Championship despite averaging less than 245 yards off the tee). Ageless Bernhard Langer, 63, became the oldest to make the Masters cut. Playing with DeChambeau on Sunday at Augusta, the PGA TOUR Champions star hit hybrids and 3-woods into most of the par 4s; DeChambeau, meanwhile, scraped the clouds with his tee shots and drove the third green. And Bernie beat Bryson 71-73. Surprising? Certainly. The fall was that. Cink, 47, won the Safeway Open, breaking a win drought of 4,074 days since the 2009 Open Championship. He is currently fourth in the FedExCup. Last season he was 144th. Gay, 48, won the Bermuda Championship for his first title in over seven years. Kokrak made 26 birdies and won THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK for his first win at 35. Because it's like they say: If at first you don't succeed, wait until your 233rd career start. Laird won a playoff over Austin Cook and Matthew Wolff at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, his first trophy since the 2013 Valero Texas Open. Swafford (Corales Punta Cana Resort & Club Championship) hadn't won since the 2017 The American Express, and Sergio Garcia, 40, putted with his eyes wide shut to steady his stroke at the Sanderson Farms Championship. It was his first victory on TOUR since the 2017 Masters, and he pointed to the sky and blinked back tears while remembering his two uncles who had died from the coronavirus. "It's hard," Garcia said, which also described so much of 2020. Ortiz broke through at the Vivint Houston Open in his 118th career TOUR start, marking his first victory of any kind since his three-win season on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2014. Then he broke down. Streb won The RSM Classic six years after winning the 2014 RSM, a stretch of 165 starts. The fall wasn't entirely about winning; Matthew Wolff was loading up on seconds long before Thanksgiving. The runner-up to DeChambeau at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, Wolff was runner-up to DeChambeau again at the U.S. Open, and in his very next start lost a playoff (Laird, Austin Cook) to finish T2 at the Shriners. Yep, three near-misses in 10 starts. He's ninth in the FedExCup. That's a solid fall; Wolff might even make the season-ending TOUR Championship at East Lake, Sept. 2-5, 2021. If he does, he'll likely run into No. 1 Johnson. Wait. Him again? Yep, meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The winner of last season's points race is in pole position yet again. That's because Johnson shot 20 under at Augusta to break the Masters scoring record (Tiger Woods, Jordan Spieth) by two. He also finished T2 at the Vivint Houston Open, and T6 at the U.S. Open. Any questions? Johnson is 252 points ahead of No. 2 DeChambeau, who along with Mickelson and Adam Scott experimented with extra-long driver shafts. Thomas revealed a grudge match with Charlie Woods, 11, as Justin and dad Mike, and Tiger and son Charlie, anticipate their first-ever appearance at the PNC Championship in Orlando later this month. Said Thomas, "We’ll have that like inner tournament within a tournament." That was the fall - a tournament within a tournament. Because as great as it was, it was just a taste of 2021, when Dustin and Justin, Viktor and Xander, will return with the rest of them. Happy holidays and see you in Maui for the Sentry Tournament of Champions, Jan. 7-10.

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