SI

From Scottie Scheffler to Max Homa and Big Money, Here Are the Oscar Winners of the Players Championship

The Academy Awards and a $25 million PGA Tour purse were both handed out Sunday, which kept The Ranking busy.

Gary Van Sickle

From Scottie Scheffler to Max Homa and Big Money, Here Are the Oscar Winners of the Players Championship
From Scottie Scheffler to Max Homa and Big Money, Here Are the Oscar Winners of the Players Championship /

The suspense is over. The Players Championship has concluded and so The Ranking proudly (sort of) presents its Academy Awards of the event, as determined by the remaining conscious members of The Ranking staff.

Consider them the Oscars of the Players. The trophies themselves, which are digital (or imaginary, if you want to get technical) are hereby dubbed the Ranklers. Our congratulations to the lucky winners …

Best Actor

This Rankler goes to Scottie Scheffler. Only he isn’t acting. He’s this good. Did you forget he very nearly won the Arnold Palmer Invitational a week earlier? He’s not on a hot streak. This is his not-so-new normal.

Best Supporting Actor

There’s something about Min Woo Lee, besides his cool three-piece name. He’s got power, he’s got touch, he’s got the smile and he’s got that X-factor known as charisma. The Ranking likes that he seems insulted by his bad shots. Good attitude. The driver swing is a little loose but nothing that can’t be fixed with a screwdriver (but not the kind the Ranking staff pours).

Best Entrances

The American golfing public wasn’t all that familiar with Hayden Buckley or Aaron Rai before the Players but a pair of dramatic holes-in-one changed all that. Buckley was a first-time Players participant last year and Rai was a rookie last week. Buckley kicked off the tourney with an early ace at 17 and a dramatic hat-toss … but missed the cut. During Rai’s first round at Sawgrass a few months ago, he started on the back nine and dunked a shot in the lake at 17 and made triple but turned to the front side and aced the par-3 3rd hole. It’s a small thing but every time a media person who introduced him/herself during a Wednesday morning interview session with Players rookies, Rai stood up from his chair to shake hands. The Ranking likes his manners and his swing. Rai tied for 19th, not a bad debut.

Biggest Cash Grab

No surprise, since The Players had a gargantuan $25 million purse. Thanks to LIV Golf, the $4.5 million won by Scheffler doesn’t seem as ridiculous as it would have a year ago. So, too, the $2.7 mill scored by runner-up Tyrrell Hatton. But fifth-place finisher Hideki Matsuyama also cleared more than $1 mill and 13th place, shared by Rickie Fowler and five others, nearly scored half a mill—$447,000 and change. Last place—75th—was good for $48,750 for Kevin Kisner, apparently still recovering from a pro-am round at Bay Hill with an SI staffer.

Best Impression of a Major Championship

Uh-oh, The Ranking thought it would never utter a sentence like that. But damn, the Stadium Course has grown on us. What’s not to like? Players can light up the course, as they did in the third round, and provide the birdies and disasters fans love to watch. And with Sunday pressure, it can break more hearts than a young Elizabeth Hurley, and provided some suspense even as Scheffler brought a five-shot lead to the closing holes because they’re so dangerous, he was no sure winner until he got a ball onto the 17th green. There isn’t another finish in golf like this one. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to adjust those major totals. Tiger Woods, how would you feel about getting credit for two more major titles? Oh, by the way, Jack Nicklaus would also get credit for three more, FYI ...

Biggest Hit

The most remarkable shot of the week, in a week of remarkable shots, was Max Homa’s Sunday tee shot at No. 12. He went for the green with driver, coming off an eagle at the 11th, and smashed one that clanked off the flagstick. Luckily, it caromed left and stayed just short of dropping into the water hazard. If you think drivable par-4s are great, you marveled at this play. If you think tour pros hit the ball much too far and should go back to bamboo shafts and papier-mache heads or something, Homa’s shot will be your Exhibit A in the lawsuit. Said Homa of the shot: “It was cool as hell. I’ve never hit a pin from 307 (yards).”

Best save

Hockey’s Stanley Cup playoffs haven’t started yet—the NHL teams first have to finish playing 197 meaningless regular-season games in order to figure out which two teams DON’T get into the playoffs—but you won’t see a more key save than the one Friday at Sawgrass. Jordan Spieth was teetering on the cut line when he teed off at the par-5 9th, his final hole. Spieth hit an FM radio station tee shot—WTFR (as in Way The Heck Right). It was headed for the water until it nailed Marine Lt. Col. Matt Cutler’s knee and caromed back into the fairway. Instead of a potential bogey, Spieth ended up chipping in for eagle to give himself a chance on the weekend. Cool souvenir: Spieth signed a flag for the officer: “Sorry & THANKS!” That’s one of a kind.

Biggest Eruption

First-time Players competitor Taylor Montgomery was about to finish off the most lucrative week of his PGA Tour career. He sank a 77-foot birdie putt at 11 to tie for fourth in the final round, then birdied 14 to tie for third. Had he held on to that position, he would’ve been in line for close to a $1.5 million payday. Sawgrass is a trapeze wire-walk over a minefield on a windy day at the finish, however. He bogeyed the 15th, butchered the par-5 16th and made double without hitting in the water, then rinsed his tee shot at 17, followed by another splash from the drop zone. He parachuted into a tie for 44th and won only $75k. After playing so well for 68 holes, that one is gonna hurt for a while.

Best Walking Tour

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan gets The Rankler for revealing that he likes to duck out of his office at PGA Tour HQ (jokingly known as the Death Star among some cranky media types) a little before noon and walk about 300 yards to the 17th tee in order to see the first groups of amateurs play the hole and take pictures. He likes their enthusiasm for being there. He is less enthused about their accuracy. Monahan told SI that he has walked up by the bleachers left of the stands and nearly been hit by a horribly errant tee ball. “That’s a shot you never forget,” Monahan said. The part about almost getting brained? Or the part about being a hack who paid north of $500 for one chance to play 17 and then sending that shot left of Winnipeg? 

Best Ironic Finish

A few days after gushing over the PGA Tour’s new plan to have a handful of limited-field, no-cut, big-money events—“I love it!” said former No. 1 ranked Rory McIlroy—he missed the cut. The Rankler trophy would look good next to that PGA Championship Wanamaker Trophy he just won nine years ago.

Best Short Game

Hand Mr. Scheffler another Rankler, please. He chipped in for birdie at the par-3 8th hole in the final round, moments after rolling in a lengthy birdie putt at the seventh, part of a five-in-a-row run. The shot also won Scheffler a bet with his caddie, Ted Scott. It was the 11th time Scheffler holed out from off the green this season. He won the bet earlier in the week when he pitched in at No. 2 to reach the agreed-upon over-under number of holeouts. “I think Teddy made a very bad bet,” said Jordan Spieth. “Teddy will probably re-evaluate considering we’re not even midway through March.” The boss just racked up $4.5 million. Maybe he’ll let the caddie slide on paying up. That’s how The Ranking staff would try to play it.

Best Fossil

His clothes were packed and his 12:18 p.m. flight to Phoenix was already booked Saturday morning when some funny things happened on The Players leaderboard and suddenly, 56-year-old Jerry Kelly sneaked in under the cutline. He became the oldest player to make a Players cut. “I did bring my golf clothes ironed,” he said, “so I changed into those and went back to the range.” Kelly tied for 54th. It seems likely that Kelly will let Bernhard Langer, the senior circuit’s ageless wonder, hear about it.

Best Speaker of the House

Pass this Rankler to Tom Hoge, who shot a tournament-record 62 and complained that the food in the player dining area was too healthy. “They need some food like the rest of the obese people in America eat. I’m ready for a cheeseburger or something.”

Published
Gary Van Sickle
GARY VAN SICKLE

Van Sickle has covered golf since 1980, following the tours to 125 men’s major championships, 14 Ryder Cups and one sweet roundtrip flight on the late Concorde. He is likely the only active golf writer who covered Tiger Woods during his first pro victory, in Las Vegas in 1996, and his 81st, in Augusta. Van Sickle’s work appeared, in order, in The Milwaukee Journal, Golf World magazine, Sports Illustrated (20 years) and Golf.com. He is a former president of the Golf Writers Association of America. His knees are shot, but he used to be a half-decent player. He competed in two national championships (U.S. Senior Amateur, most recently in 2014); made it to U.S. Open sectional qualifying once and narrowly missed the Open by a scant 17 shots (mostly due to poor officiating); won 10 club championships; and made seven holes-in-one (though none lately). Van Sickle’s golf equipment stories usually are based on personal field-testing, not press-release rewrites. His nickname is Van Cynical. Yeah, he earned it.

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