This article is part of our Weekly PGA Recap series.
Chez Reavie is 37 years old, and not too long ago his journeyman golf life started to take a huge turn – for the better. Athletes are not supposed to get better in their 30s, especially their late 30s, but Reavie won for the first time in 11 years on Sunday at the Travelers Championship to move to a career-best No. 26 in the world rankings.
After being on Tour for more than a decade, Reavie has now turned in two of the best five performances of his career in the past two weeks. Yes, the win comes on the heels of tying for third at the U.S. Open. His lone prior win came at the Canadian Open when he was a rookie in 2008.
Reavie is now ranked ahead of, for instance, Jordan Spieth, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia and Henrik Stenson.
What makes it all the more remarkable that Reavie is finding his greatest success at this stage of his career is that he is a short hitter in an era when balls are flying farther than ever before. He makes up for it by ranking first on Tour in driving accuracy and doing pretty much everything else decently. What's also amazing about Reavie is that he doesn't look like an athlete. Heck, he barely looks like a golfer.
He showed tremendous poise on Sunday after his six-stroke lead over Keegan Bradley at the start of the round was trimmed to one with two holes to
Chez Reavie is 37 years old, and not too long ago his journeyman golf life started to take a huge turn – for the better. Athletes are not supposed to get better in their 30s, especially their late 30s, but Reavie won for the first time in 11 years on Sunday at the Travelers Championship to move to a career-best No. 26 in the world rankings.
After being on Tour for more than a decade, Reavie has now turned in two of the best five performances of his career in the past two weeks. Yes, the win comes on the heels of tying for third at the U.S. Open. His lone prior win came at the Canadian Open when he was a rookie in 2008.
Reavie is now ranked ahead of, for instance, Jordan Spieth, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia and Henrik Stenson.
What makes it all the more remarkable that Reavie is finding his greatest success at this stage of his career is that he is a short hitter in an era when balls are flying farther than ever before. He makes up for it by ranking first on Tour in driving accuracy and doing pretty much everything else decently. What's also amazing about Reavie is that he doesn't look like an athlete. Heck, he barely looks like a golfer.
He showed tremendous poise on Sunday after his six-stroke lead over Keegan Bradley at the start of the round was trimmed to one with two holes to go. At that point, Bradley blinked, double-bogeying No. 17 to hand the trophy to Reavie.
As amazing as Reavie's accomplishment was, it was not even the best story of the tournament. That belongs to Zack Sucher. After all, Reavie has made some $15 million over his career. Sucher had credit card debt and was on disability not too long ago.
Sucher tied for second with Bradley, a result he called "life-changing."
Sucher is 32 years old, just five years younger than Reavie, yet had played in only 36 career PGA Tour events. He entered 222nd in FedEx Cup points, not far from the bottom. He doesn't even have his Tour card. He played last week on the Web.com Tour – and missed the cut.
But Sucher got into the Travelers field and was even leading deep into Saturday – amazingly by six strokes. At that point, he collapsed and Reavie surged. And you thought, okay, he had his moment in the sun. But Sucher played the back-nine on Sunday in 5-under to catch Bradley for second. He earned $633.600, nearly doubling his career earnings.
And unlike Reavie, he needed every penny of it. Really badly.
Sucher spoke to reporters after his round, detailing injuries from a couple of years ago that left him unable to play and without any income – until PGA Tour disability kicked in. We all think of the glamorous lifestyle of a pro golfer, but he and his wife opened credit cards because they couldn't pay their bills. Sucher is still playing on a major medical extension and has two tournaments left to get about 77 FedEx Cup points. It won't be easy. He had only 26 before Sunday. He said those two events will be this week's Rocket Mortgage Classic and the John Deere Classic two weeks afterward.
Sucher began the year in the 2000s in the world rankings. He began the week in the 500s. Now he's inside the top-150. He moved from 222nd in the FedEx point standings to 126th, just one spot from making the playoffs and securing his card for next season. That would mean more to him that the win meant to Reavie. But it won't be easy for him to move from 126 to 125. At the very least, he's pretty much assured of being inside the top-150, which would get him into the Korn Ferry (nee Web.com) playoffs.
"To be honest, I'm not sure what all this does for points-wise, for next year," Sucher told reporters, according to golfchannel.com. "I don't even know how that works.
"I know that like two months ago we had credit card debt. So I know we don't have that anymore."
MONDAY BACKSPIN
Chip McDaniel
The third best story of the week, or maybe the second or even the first, depending on your vantage point, belongs to McDaniel, the former University of Kentucky star. He hasn't exactly arrived on Tour like Viktor Hovland. The 23-year-old got into the Travelers after Monday-qualifying for the third time this season. He had to survive a 9-for-3 playoff. That's much more Sucher than Hovland. In order to get to the qualifying event, he had to fly a red eye from San Francisco to Boston, then drive to Connecticut. McDaniel was in the Bay Area because he was in the U.S. Open – and he played all four rounds. Naturally, he had to qualify to get into the Open, both sectional and local. At the Travelers, McDaniel wound up tied for 43rd, and played the third round with Brooks Koepka, beating the world No. 1 by four strokes. Another example of the glamorous life of a pro golfer, one who is now ranked 703rd in the world.
Keegan Bradley
Beginning the day six shots back of Reavie, Bradley gave it a great run, getting to one back before falling back. You can't ask for much more. But when you look at the stats and see that Bradley led the field in strokes gained: putting, well, you have to wonder how Bradley didn't win. A tee-to-green stalwart, Bradley finished 37th in the field in strokes gained: tee to green. Hard to believe that's how he lost the tournament. Still, he's back inside the top-30 in the OWGR, at No. 29.
Vaughn Taylor
Taylor had played this tournament 14 times previously and had only one top-10 before this solo fourth. At 43, he's having a great season, now up to 65th in the FedEx point standings and also up to 125th in the OWGR, his highest standing since the end of 2016. Taylor has made 10 of his past 13 cuts this season. He is sixth on Tour in strokes gained: putting, and when you can do that, you always have at least a puncher's chance of making the weekend. Taylor has been connecting on a lot of punches lately.
Joaquin Niemann
Last year, Niemann arrived on the scene much like Viktor Hovland this year, the No. 1 amateur in the world turning pro in midseason. And he had a great freshman season at age 19. This season has been far tougher. We often see second-year players take a step back, or more, as the season is longer and the grind greater. The Chilean tied for fifth at River Highlands, only his second top-10 all season and first since November. Niemann was outside the top-150 in the point standings for much of the season. Now, he's up to 106th and his card seems secure for next season. Niemann is also back inside the top100 in the OWGR, at No. 97.
Abraham Ancer
Ancer shot the round of the day, a 7-under 63, to zoom up the leaderboard on Sunday, ending in a tie for eighth. It was his third top-10 and eighth top-25 this season. Perhaps most importantly to Mexico's top player, it moved him inside the top-8 in the International team's Presidents Cup standings.
Jason Day
The Day-Stevie Williams partnership continued for the second straight week and with a good result: a tie for eighth. The way Day tells it, Williams is a bit of a drill sergeant. That seems like something Day needs. We shall see.
Brian Harman
About a year and a half ago, Harman was ranked 20th in the world. He began the Travelers at No. 100, as his game had fallen off the rails. The veteran left-hander tied for eighth, equaling his best showing since tying for sixth at last year's Travelers. Harman is close to 200th in greens in regulation, which is a byproduct of being a shorter hitter in an ever-lengthening game. For what it's worth, he's back to 91st in the world.
Jordan Spieth
He missed the cut by three shots. How close is he now?
Cameron Smith
Since tying for sixth at the WGC-Mexico in February, the young Aussie has played nine tournaments. He's missed four cuts, including at the Travelers, and has not finished inside the top-50 in any of them. That is one serious slump.
Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa, Matthew Wolff, Justin Suh
Hovland and Wolff, the former Oklahoma State teammates, made their pro debuts and both made the cut. Hovland tied for 54th, fading to a 73 on Sunday. Wolff was an MDF. Morikawa, playing for the third straight week as a pro, tied for 36th, the best of the bunch in this "Class of '19." Suh, the least celebrated in the group, fared the worst, missing the cut by a wide margin. All but Morikawa will be in the field this week at Detroit, and they'll be joined by yet another Oklahoma State Cowboy, Zach Bauchou, making his pro debut. We will see most of these guys getting sponsor invites every week through the end of the regular season.
