Northern Trust Recap: Reed Captures Playoff Opener

Even when Patrick Reed was playing badly – and that was the feeling coming from him and his team, mind you – he wasn't playing that badly. He wasn't missing cuts, he wasn't tumbling down the world rankings. He just wasn't the same guy who won the Masters and five other PGA Tour events.

So it was quite a bold move to look in the mirror when many golfers wouldn't, admitting he needed help and bringing in famed coach David Leadbetter. The results weren't instant, but Reed's play steadily improved, to the point that his victory on Sunday at the Northern Trust was far from a surprise.

In capturing the playoff opener at Liberty National, Reed won for the first time since Augusta some 16 months ago. He vaulted from 50th in the point standings to second, behind only Brooks Koepka, and to 15th in the world rankings – exactly where he began the year.

Reed fell as far as 25th – dropping 10 spots when you're that high is still a bit of a tumble – but it wasn't extreme. He has played 23 tournaments on the PGA Tour this season and missed only three cuts, and in his 20 cashes he's finished top-25 13 times. Most golfers would kill for that.

Leadbetter came on board in March, and you really started to see the changes at the end of June with a tie for fifth at Detroit. Then came a tie for 10th at the Open Championship, a tie for 12th at the WGC in Memphis and, well, here we are.

(Just a quick note on Leadbetter: Next to Reed, and perhaps his wife Justine, who had a big role in the coaching change, nobody looks better here than he does, after taking a bit of a backseat the past few years as younger, more front-facing coaches emerged. Really, who has Leadbetter coached in the past decade or so besides Michelle Wie?)

Reed's win moved him to 12th in the Presidents Cup standings with one more week before the eight automatic qualifiers on both the U.S. and International teams are set. Either way, Reed will be on the team, as captain Tiger Woods tweeted on Sunday.
 

It's hard to imagine more than one, maybe two, of the top-eight currently on the U.S. side changing. Maybe none. Webb Simpson is sixth, Bryson DeChambeau is seventh and Patrick Cantlay is eighth. Let's say that doesn't change after next week's BMW Championship. That would leave three of the four captain's picks. Rickie Fowler is probably a lock. That leaves Gary Woodland and Tony Finau, plus Phil Mickelson, Woods himself and Jordan Spieth, who it's also hard to envision not being on the team.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Tiger Woods
The plan to play all three playoffs events was at the very least aggressive but also curious. Woods clearly has not been 100 percent healthy. He had played only three times since Augusta, over a span of four months, so playing three times in three weeks? Well, now Woods won't play 12 rounds during the playoffs, as he withdrew from the Northern Trust after only one round. He plans to play the BMW, but he not only has to make the cut, he'll now need a high finish to get back inside the top-30. Woods stands 38th in points, and in all likelihood his season will end next week. The only question is whether it ends after four rounds or two. … Or maybe one or none.

Bryson DeChambeau
DeChambeau probably didn't respond to all his critics in the best way, doubling down that he is not the poster boy for slow play on the PGA Tour and responding to some people directly on Instagram. He also sought out Brooks Koepka and his caddie, and we think that was probably his best move. For what it's worth, DeChambeau didn't implode at Liberty National, playing steady the final three rounds to tie for 24th. He, in all likelihood, will make the Presidents Cup team, and he'll be teammates with some of his most vocal critics, namely Koepka. Despite drawing a line in the sand over the weekend, DeChambeau surely will have to make some changes to his approach – or the PGA Tour will make them for him. Slow play has been a topic for some time now, but for whatever reason, this past weekend seemed like a tipping point. The Tour must finally take action, not only against DeChambeau but with all violators.

Brooks Koepka
When asked about DeChambeau approaching him, Koepka had a measured and thoughtful response. In part, he said that "everyone out here [is] probably a little bit more afraid of confrontation than in other sports. … Baseball, you'll see it. Teammates go at each other and they are still fine. Football, same thing. Basketball, I mean, you name it. There's always been some confrontation on a team. Sometimes it helps and you figure out what the root of the problem is, and start working on it."

Jordan Spieth
Mr. Never on Sunday finally didn't treat the fourth round of a tournament as the sabbath (he did that on Saturday this time – zing!). Spieth closed with a 67 to not only move into a tie for sixth, but he punched his ticket to Medinah. He began the week 69th in points and is now up to 44th. That means he'll need another great week or miss the Tour Championship for a second straight year. Every week, someone on Twitter says that THIS will be Spieth's week. If they keep saying it enough, eventually they'll be right. But having entered the weekend in the final pairing with Dustin Johnson, Spieth shot himself out of the tournament with a 74, incredibly rinsing his tee ball on 1. There is still work to do. Spieth remains 192nd on Tour in final-round scoring average; his 67 moved him up only three places.

Abraham Ancer
Ancer impressively pushed Reed to the 72nd hole before winding up one shot back for a solo second, his best showing ever on the PGA Tour. That moved him from 67th to eighth in points, ensuring a berth not only this week at the BMW but at the Tour Championship and all that goes with it. Just for getting to East Lake, Ancer will get spots in the Masters, both Opens, The PLAYERS, two of the WGCs and other invitationals, including Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer's tournaments, and presumably even Woods' event at Riviera. Ancer is now up to a career-best 39th in the world, and he potentially can be a real asset to Els on the International team.

Harold Varner III
What a week for Varner – and completely out of nowhere. The 28-year-old tied for third with Jon Rahm, his best finish ever on the PGA Tour. Varner had not cracked the top-20 in a tournament since January. He was down to 185th in the OWGR and 102nd in the Fed Ex. He's now up to 29th in points, so he'll be at the BMW but will need another good week to head to East Lake for the first time. Varner had never been higher than 108th in the world rankings, but this finish moved him to 106th. He is one of four golfers to advance from outside the top-70 to Medinah.

Collin Morikawa
Morikawa wasn't the headliner of the Class of '19 when they debuted over the summer. That was Viktor Hovland. Then Matthew Wolff won the 3M Open and he took center stage. But Morikawa quickly followed with a win of his own, albeit in the opposite-field Barracuda. Regardless, he is the last man standing from this group, in 57th place in the point standings and off to Medinah. Morikawa didn't do much after his Barracuda win – 31st at the Wyndham, 52nd at the Northern Trust – but of course, his season was already an immense success.

Jason Day
Here's what we wrote Sunday night: We sure hope Day and new caddie Stevie Williams are patient in their process – they say they are – because they are getting zero results right now after being together for six events. Only 36 golfers out of the 121 at the Northern Trust missed the cut, and Day was one of them. In the past four tournaments, Day has missed two cuts, and his best week was a T40 at the no-cut WGC. He now heads to the BMW in 50th place needing a huge week to advance. Hey, at least he'll make the cut. 
Here's a Monday morning update: Day and Williams announced the end of their partnership. Day will have a new caddie for the BMW.

Advancing to the BMW
We had no history to go by to know how many guys on average move from the top-125 into the top-70. This was the first year of the three-event playoffs. Well, next year we'll be saying that four guys did it. Besides Varner, who made the biggest jump, Wyndham Clark (90th to 68th), Troy Merritt (72nd to 59th) and Joaquin Niemann (74th to 70th) are headed to Medinah. On Sunday, Rob Bolton of the PGA Tour tweeted that in the five-year period from 2015 to 2019, an average of 5.4 guys per year moved into the top-70 after the first playoff event. That's helpful information, but it's not apple to apples, as there wasn't the pressure there is now to get into the top-70 in one week. In the past, the golfers had two weeks, first needing to crack the top-100. That step in the playoffs has been eliminated.

Going home
The biggest name to fall out of the top-70 unquestionably is Sergio Garcia, whose stateside season is now over. It wasn't that Garcia played that poorly, it's that he didn't give himself many chances. He played only 15 events, the minimum to keep his card, yet totaled five top-10s. Of course, Garcia's worst showings did not come on the course – well, actually they did, but we're talking about attacking unsuspecting tee boxes and sand traps. The other three to drop out: Matthew Wolff, Danny Lee and Kevin Streelman.