Leaderboard: Mickelson maintains lead after 2

Dustin Johnson pulls away from the field (and his closest pursuer in the FedExCup) with a final-round 66 to capture his 19th PGA TOUR title at the RBC Canadian Open at Glen Abbey. Welcome to the Monday Finish, where Johnson, 34, won for the 10th time in his last 43 starts to maintain the pole position in the FedExCup, going 527 points ahead of second-place Justin Thomas. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. Johnson was a ball-striking machine. When he is putting well enough, Johnson crushes the field with his tee-to-green game, and such was the case yet again at Glen Abbey. One week after missing the cut by three at The Open Championship at Carnoustie, Johnson buckled down on his short game and it paid dividends. “I just did not score very well at Carnoustie at all,â€� Johnson said. “I didn’t putt good. I just scored really badly. But I hit the ball — I felt like I hit the ball plenty good enough to be under par after two days, and I was 5-over or something. It was just bad scoring.â€� He had to clean up his putting, which meant working at it on the practice green. Job done. “Started rolling the putter a lot better here this week,â€� he said. “You know, really, really hit the ball well all four days.â€� You can say that again. Johnson averaged 318.5 yards off the tee, which tied for first in driving distance, and hit 57 of 72 greens in regulation, also tied for first for the week. And he feasted on the par 5s, making three eagles and going 12 under on those holes. 2. Canada adopted DJ as one of their own. The famous/infamous streak continues: No Canadian has won the RBC Canadian Open since Pat Fletcher in 1954. It was some consolation, then, that the winner had at least an ancillary connection to the Great White North. He felt, he said, “like an honorary Canadian.â€� The reason: Canadian hockey great Wayne Gretzky, father of Paulina, Johnson’s fiancé. “It definitely helps,â€� Johnson said. “I get a lot of fans that pull for Wayne, they pull for me.â€� 3. Bradley’s mini-revival continues. It hasn’t been easy for Keegan Bradley since the anchoring ban took effect Jan. 1, 2016, but his winless streak goes back even further. At the RBC Canadian Open he was making his 157th start since his last win, at the 2012 World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational. But things are looking up. In the process of shooting a final-round, 8-under 64, Bradley holed out for eagle from 151 yards at the par-4 ninth hole. He became the first player since Derek Lamely in 2011 to record five eagles in a single stroke-play event on TOUR, and moved from 52nd to 44th in the FedExCup. “It’s probably my most tidy short game/putting tournament since I switched away from the belly putter,â€� said Bradley, who along with Harold Varner III shot one of only two bogey-free rounds Sunday. “So really big step forward for me, and it’s so fun to be able to play with a chance to win. It’s just something that I love, and it was fun this week.â€� 4. Hughes gave Canada hope. For the second straight year, Mackenzie Hughes (68, T8) won the Rivermead Cup as low Canadian. He threw a charge into the home crowd with a big front nine (32), but as was the case all week he couldn’t capitalize on the par-5 holes on the back (36). “Talking to me right now, I would say I’m a little disappointed,â€� Hughes said. “Just because right at the end there, if I could have — those par-5s coming in, they were both playing downwind, and if you’re out here and playing with your buddies, you’d probably birdie them both. More tough when there is pressure. But, yeah, overall very satisfied with the week.â€� Hughes birdied only one par 5 in the final round, the 13th hole. He played the holes in only 1 under in Round 1 and even in Round 2 before finally taking advantage in the third round, going 4 under. For the week, he was only 6 under on the par 5s, making him six shots worse than Johnson on those holes alone. At 15 under total, Hughes finished eight behind the winner. It was his first top-10 finish on TOUR since the 2017 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. 5. An’s T2 finish had silver lining. Byeong Hun An, a playoff runner-up to Bryson DeChambeau at the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide earlier this season, was admittedly not at his best as he shot a final-round 69 at Glen Abbey to finish T2 with Whee Kim (69), three back. But An moved from 61st to 40th in the Official World Golf Ranking, and he was headed for this week’s elite, 73-player World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio. He also kept his sense of humor. “I had a tough start, and I bogeyed the second hole, which is probably a birdie hole for most of the guys,â€� An said. “But I found it hard to shoot 3 under today, and Dustin played it great today. I think he’s pretty good at golf.â€� FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Johnson became the first since Tiger Woods (’05-’09) and the 21st in TOUR history to collect at least three wins in three straight seasons. He is now 7-for-15 at converting a 54-hole lead/co-lead into a victory. He has won by a combined 17 strokes in three wins this season: Sentry Tournament of Champions by eight, FedEx St. Jude Classic by six, RBC Canadian by three. 2. Johnson led the field in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (+1.884), and was fourth in SG: Approach-the-Green (+1.452), accounting for a combined 81 percent of his total Strokes Gained against the field. He was 33rd in SG: Around-the-Green (+.220) and 29th in SG: Putting (+.557). 3. Just 15 years after his dad, Bob, won the 2003 RBC Canadian Open, Kevin Tway took a share of the 54-hole lead into Sunday. He was trying to make the Tway tandem just the 10th father-son duo in history to win on TOUR, but things went awry in the final round as Kevin shot 76. On the bright side, his T17 finish still moved him from 99th to 91st in the FedExCup. 4. The front is generally regarded as the tougher nine at Glen Abbey, what with three of the course’s par 5s on the back. But England’s Tommy Fleetwood (T6), in his first RBC Canadian start, took that to a new level, playing the front nine in 4 over par and the back nine in 20 under. 5. Brandt Snedeker (67, T8) won the RBC Canadian in 2013, so it figures he would excel at Glen Abbey. Still, this was only his third top-10 finish this season. As he said afterward, it came at a good time, as he moved from 90th to 77th in the FedExCup. That puts him in a good spot to make at least the first two FedExCup Playoffs events. He won the whole thing in 2012.

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What a year. As we prepare to close the book on 2021 still a little wobbly on our feet, a little glassy-eyed as we try to process it all, it seems only appropriate to pause and consider what we’ve seen. A six-man playoff. An eight-hole playoff. The first PLAYERS Championship in two years. Xander Schauffele striking gold at the Tokyo Olympics. Tony Finau winning again. We saw Power, as in Seamus, your Barbasol Championship winner, and power, as in driving distance leader Bryson DeChambeau’s crowd-pleasing, 370-yard moon shot on the par-5 sixth hole at Bay Hill as he won the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. English, as in Harris, was spoken seemingly everywhere, from Kapalua (Sentry Tournament of Champions) to Connecticut (Travelers Championship) to Kohler (Ryder Cup). We also had a long-awaited Ancer, as in Abraham, capturing his first PGA TOUR trophy in an unlikely playoff at the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational. Here’s what else we saw over these unforgettable 12 months. Underrated Player of the Year: Hideki Matsuyama, as rated by himself At The Masters in April, Matsuyama became the first Japanese player to wear the green jacket and the first to win a men’s major of any kind. He was brimming with confidence. Alas, it was gone by the time he went home for the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP in October. “Ball striking, putting, chipping, all of these have not reached the level I want,” he said. “If my game scored 10 out of 10 at The Masters, now I would say it scores less than 1. I will be struggling this week, but I am here in Japan, so I am motivated to be in contention.” Then he won, after which he said, “I would rate my performance as two or three.” Geez. Tough crowd. Underrated Player of the Year II: Justin Thomas, as rated by himself Despite winning THE PLAYERS Championship, Justin Thomas said at the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba that he would give his season a C-minus. Craziest finish: WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational Harris English was going to win, and if not him, then Bryson DeChambeau. They were 20 under and 18 under, respectively, as they went to the back nine at TPC Southwind. The next closest player was at 16 under. Alas, after multiple water balls, a long ruling, and being put on the clock, English and DeChambeau shot 40 and 41, respectively, on the back. Abraham Ancer (2-under 68) won after joining a playoff with Hideki Maruyama and Sam Burns, who finished an hour before English and DeChambeau and admitted he almost left the property. Shocker of the Year Phil Mickelson won the PGA Championship less than a month shy of his 51st birthday, becoming the oldest player to win a major – by 2 1/2 years. (Julius Boros) Shocker of the Year II After winning just three times in 27 years, the U.S. Ryder Cup Team trounced Europe 19-9, the biggest margin of victory since the event went to 28 matches. Most Functional Family Stewart Cink won the RBC Heritage in April with son Reagan as his caddie. It was the second time they’d teamed up for a W in the season’s first eight months. This, after Cink went into last season without a victory since 2009. Best Playoff Fittingly, it’s a four-way tie: “Patty Ice” Cantlay beat Bryson DeChambeau in a six-hole playoff at the BMW Championship (and went on to win the FedExCup). Harris English beat Kramer Hickok in eight extra holes at the Travelers Championship. C.T. Pan won a seven-man playoff to capture the Bronze Medal at the Tokyo Olympics. Finally, Kevin Kisner won a six-man playoff that also included Branden Grace, Si Woo Kim, Kevin Na, Adam Scott and Roger Sloan at the Wyndham Championship. Best Delivery World No. 1 Jon Rahm and his wife, Kelley, welcomed their first child, son Kepa, just prior to The Masters Tournament in early April. Best Delivery II Jon Rahm birdied 17 and 18 to win the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, where he’d captured his first PGA TOUR title in 2017 and not far from where he later proposed to Kelley. Best Slump-Buster Jordan Spieth won for the first time since 2017 at the Valero Texas Open. “It’s been a long road,” he said. A total of 1,351 days, to be exact, but who’s counting? Best Home Cooking Breaking a drought going back to the 2019 PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP, Rory McIlroy won his third Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow, where he’s a member. It was the first time he’s won a TOUR event three times. Best Reason to Keep Knocking on the Door Hideki Matsuyama won the Masters, becoming the first Japanese player to win a men’s major in April. It was his first victory in four years. Justin Thomas opened with a 38 Thursday and was a shot outside the cut line with nine holes remaining Friday, then shot 64-68 to win THE PLAYERS Championship. “It was a ball-striking clinic,” said his then-caddie, Jimmy Johnson. After winning for the first time in his career at THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK the previous fall, Jason Kokrak, 36, continued his transformation from journeyman to multiple TOUR winner as he captured the Charles Schwab Challenge in late May. And when he captured the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open in November, he had a sleeve of wins in a span of 13 months, making him one of the game’s hottest players. Supernova of the Year Less than a year after picking up his first major title at the PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park, Collin Morikawa captured The Open Championship for major No. 2. The five-time PGA TOUR winner, who is still just 24, also went 3-0-1 at the Ryder Cup and became the first American to win the European Tour’s Race to Dubai. Nickname of the Year Patrick Cantlay rode a red-hot summer all the way to the FedExCup, but he was “Patty Ice” to the fans at the BMW Championship. Rarely has anyone so aptly lived into his new nickname, which was ironed onto the back of an Atlanta Falcons jersey (and apparently into Cantlay’s unflappable game) for the TOUR Championship. “It could have been a different nickname, but he really appreciated that the fans got behind him,” said Matt Minister, Cantlay’s longtime caddie. “Because up until last week (at the BMW), everybody else was being cheered for, and then they really started cheering for him. That’s what made the difference, that they got behind him.”

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