Shriners Open Recap: Youth Reigns as Kaufman Wins

On one hand, another 20-something winning on the PGA Tour isn't that impressive. After all, Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook at 19, the same age that Bill Gates founded Microsoft. Heck, Mozart started composing at five. If you want to stick to just golf, fine: Lydia Ko won her 10th LPGA tournament on Sunday, and she's only 18.

But still, what's happening of late on the PGA Tour is metamorphic.

Smylie Kaufman captured the Shriners Open with a 10-under 61 on Sunday, becoming the second straight rookie 23-year-old to win at the start of the latest PGA wrap-around season. Perhaps even more amazing than Smylie Kaufman winning a PGA Tour event in just his fifth career start is that Smylie is his real name. (Really.)

Kaufman was tied for 28th after Saturday's play and even started Sunday in rather pedestrian fashion, 1-under through seven holes. But he played the last 11 in 9-under, then waited more than two hours to see whether anyone could catch him. While others did get to 16-under, Kaufman's four-day score, they couldn't hold on. Kevin Na notched his second straight runner-up, in a six-way tie for second at 15-under with Jason Bohn, Cameron Tringale, Alex Cejka and two other rookies, Patton Kizzire and Brett Stegmaier.

(If you picked Smylie Kaufman to win the Shriners, no need to continue with the rest of this column or read it ever again; you already know everything there is to know about golf, and probably everything else, too.)

Kaufman didn't exactly star at LSU or even on the Web.com Tour last season. He secured his PGA card by finishing sixth on the Web.com's regular-season money list. But while he won a tournament, was runner-up in another and had two more top fives, he also missed the cut in half of his 20 starts. Not exactly an indicator of greatness ahead.

But Kaufman did debut as a PGA Tour member last week with a tie for 10th at the season-opening Frys.com Open. Before that, Kaufman had missed the cut at the 2014 U.S. Open and 2015 Shell Houston Open and tied for 66th at the opposite-field Barbasol Championship in July. That was the extent of his PGA career.

Of course, like Frys winner Emiliano Grillo before him, Kaufman will be seeing a lot more of the PGA Tour, qualifying for the Masters, the Players Championship, the PGA Championship and the Tournament of Champions.

Thanks to Grillo and Kaufman, it's the first time since 1980 that the first two PGA events of the season have been won by previous nonwinners. Further, according to the Golf Channel, this makes six straight events won by golfers 27 or younger, and 26 of the last 49 have been won by golfers in their 20s, as have six of the past eight majors.

The talent on tour is so deep, the depth so wide. Every week, someone else could find lightning in a bottle. It makes watching golf a lot more fun – and picking your fantasy teams a lot more challenging.

MONDAY TAKEAWAY

Patton Kizzire
Kizzire tied for second in his first start as a PGA Tour member and, like Kaufman, his fifth event overall. The 29-year-old was the Web.com Tour's regular-season money winner last season and, thus, exempt from the reshuffle. So he will get plenty of starts and actually had a much better year than Kaufman. Until now. Kizzire skipped last week's Frys to get married, a benefit of not having to worry about any of the periodic reshuffles.

Brett Stegmaier
Stegmaier is yet another rookie/Web.com grad who was playing in his fifth ever PGA event. He had a chance to tie Kaufman on 18, but his birdie putt from the fringe came up 16 inches short, relegating him to the six-way tie for second. Stegmaier, like Kaufman, missed half his Web.com cuts last season. Unlike Kaufman, he isn't a 20-something. Stegmaier is 32. Some golfers find stardom that late, but the odds are not in his favor.

Russell Henley
Henley is still only 26, younger than Kizzire and Stegmaier, but he's been around for years. Already a two-time winner, Henley tied for 10th at 13-under, three behind Kaufman. He's earned in excess of $2 million each of the past three seasons, and there's no reason to think that will change. Henley won on tour in 2013 and 2104, but not 2015, and wins will get tougher for him, and everyone, for the aforementioned talent pool getting deeper.

Scott Stallings
Stallings missed the cut at the Frys, his first event following a three-month suspension after he turned himself in for accidentally taking a banned substance. He tied for 16th at the Shriners, perhaps finding his game sooner than could have been anticipated. Stallings has never been a star golfer, but until his shortened 2014-15 season, he had won three times in the past four years.

Steve Marino
Marino's growing career was derailed by injuries, and he's played in only 34 events since 2012. He returned to the Web.com Tour to restore his playing privileges, and now he's back. Marino missed the cut at the Frys before tying for 35th at the Shriners. His window to be a big-time golfer may have passed, but he could be a decent fantasy option, one who could complement the bigger names on your team.

Jimmy Walker
We all know by now that Walker is a fast starter, that he does his best work early in the season and has thrived in the wrap-around schedule. Walker tied for fourth at the Shriners last year and for 12th the year before. On Sunday, in position to perhaps make a run at victory, Walker instead went the other way, imploding with a 7-over 78 to tie for 50th. Playing in the Presidents Cup, Walker really didn't have much of a break, and he's slated to return to Asia in two weeks for the WGC-HSBC Champions in China. That's a lot of travel, even in the cushy world of private jets.

Webb Simpson
Nowhere is Simpson's transition to a nonanchored putter more evident than at the Shriners Open. He tied for 56th there on Sunday. Previously, with an anchored putter, Simpson won the tournament in 2013 and tied for fourth last year. The season is only two weeks old and already Simpson is 130th in strokes gained: putting.

Brooks Koepka
Koepka faded badly at the end of his breakthrough 2014-15 season. Having not been chosen for the Presidents Cup, Koepka had three weeks off before returning to action at the Frys. He tied for 41st there but missed the cut at the Shriners, and you have to wonder why he jumped back in so quickly. Plus, Koepka is heading to Asia for the WGC event. He may not get needed rest until the tour breaks at the end of the year.

Will Wilcox
Wilcox enters 2015-16 as a hot sleeper among gamers – not unlike Grillo. He was only 97th in points last season but finished top 10 in scoring average, strokes gained: total, greens in regulation, total driving and ball striking. So it's a mystery why he didn't finish higher in the FedEx Cup chase. Wilcox did his owners proud with a T10 at the Frys before missing the cut at the Shriners. Wilcox was negative strokes gained: putting at in both events and that may be what's holding him back.

Tim Clark
Clark apparently will stay with the anchored putter until the bitter end, when it becomes banned on Jan. 1. So the fall season is more important to Clark than most. But two tournaments in, the veteran has two missed cuts. If you haven't drafted yet, that's worth noting.

Justin Rose
Rose was an early arrival in Asia, and it paid off with a victory in the Hong Kong Open, his eighth on the European Tour. Lucas Bjerregaard of Denmark was a shot back, but no one else was within six of the Englishman. Rose certainly doesn't draw the attention of Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, Rory McIlroy and others, but he's still very capable of being a factor, if not a force, in the 2016 majors.