Weekly Recap: Rahm Win Moves Him to No. 4

Professional golf never ends. It really doesn't.

With more than a dozen tours around the world – and that's not including seniors and women – there is a tournament of some consequence somewhere in the world every week of the year. But if we could ever say that golf was "ending," this would be that time.

On Sunday, one of the planet's two biggest golf tours concluded its season while the other played its final event of the calendar year.

In the United Arab Emirates, Jon Rahm completed a masterful run that saw him emerge as one of the sport's elite by winning the European Tour's season-ending DP World Tour Championship, and Tommy Fleetwood hung on to capture the Race to Dubai. (See ***note below about "season-ending.") Closer to home, intriguing rookie Austin Cook won his first career PGA Tour event at the RSM Classic on St. Simons Island, Ga.

There was even another event of prominence last week on the Japan Tour, the world's third biggest tour. That's where Brooks Koepka ran away from Hideki Matsuyama and the rest of field to win the Dunlop Phoenix by nine strokes.

Let's break it all down by tournament …

MONDAY BACKSPIN

DP World Tour Championship

Jon Rahm
The Spaniard took advantage of Justin Rose faltering on the back nine to edge Shane Lowry and Kiradech Aphibarnrat by one stroke in the Euro version of the Tour Championship. Rahm won for the third time in 2017 on a third different continent to move to No. 4 in the world, overtaking Matsuyama. He previously won at Torrey Pines in January and the Irish Open in July. The only thing keeping the still-only-23-year-old Rahm from being in the same category as Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, the three golfers ahead of him in the OWGR, is a major title. Curiously, for all of Rahm's greatness over the past 11 months, he did not even manage a top-25 in the four majors. Still, it would surprise no one to see Rahm win one in 2018.

Tommy Fleetwood
Also thanks to Rose's late collapse, Fleetwood's tie for 21st was enough for him to hang on to win the Race to Dubai (the Euro version of the FedEx Cup playoffs). It was the Englishman's sixth straight top-25 and he's now ranked 19th in the world, having been as high as 14th. But Fleetwood has yet to make a convincing case he can rise to the level of world's elite. For example, even in his run to the Race to Dubai title, he played twice as many tournaments as Rose (24-12) and still only barely edged out his countryman. Fleetwood did tie for second in the WGC-Mexico and fourth in the U.S. Open earlier this year, but those are his only career top-10s in majors/WGCs. In fact, he has only three Euro Tour wins. Still only 26, Fleetwood has said he'll play more on the PGA Tour in 2018, so we'll soon get a better understanding of how good he can be.

Justin Rose
Rose apparently ran out of gas in his bid to complete a remarkable run at the end of the season. He won two big events in a row in the past month, the WGC-HSBC Champions and Turkish Airlines Open, and was heading for a third. But he bogeyed three holes on the back nine on Sunday, one on a three-foot miss, to tie for fourth, two shots behind Rahm. Rose remains No. 6 in the world, which is exactly where he was a decade ago – pretty remarkable for a 37-year-old playing perhaps the best golf of his career.

*** The 2016-17 European Tour has ended, but its offseason will be even shorter than the PGA Tour's 11-day break. The 2017-18 Euro season begins on … Thursday. That's right, it's time for next season, as they head from the Mideast to Asia for the Hong Kong Open. And it's not some cupcake field, as Rose, Fleetwood, Sergio Garcia, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Rafa Cabrera-Bello are scheduled to play.

Dunlop Phoenix

Brooks Koepka
Koepka successfully defended his title. While last year the winning margin was one stroke, this year it was nine. The field was far from strong, but it did include a few big names, including Matsuyama (solo fifth), Xander Schauffele (T2), Wesley Bryan (T9) and Harold Varner III (T19). In Koepka's 10 most-recent tournaments, beginning with his U.S. Open victory, he now has two wins, a runner-up, five top-10s and nine top-20s. The Dunlop was the only weak field of the bunch. If there is anyone who may not want the golf season to take a break, it's Koepka, ranked seventh in the world.

Hideki Matsuyama
Matsuyama's solo fifth in and of itself isn't so bad. Of bigger concern is his schedule. He's already played three times in the "offseason" and next week he'll jet back to North America to defend his title in the Hero World Challenge. That presumably will be it for the Japanese star in 2017, but let's see whether he'll be right back at it in the beginning January for the Tournament of Champions.

Xander Schauffele
We also have raised concerns about Schauffele's frequency of play of late. But for now, just let this soak in: The 24-year-old is now up to a career-best 24th in the world, ahead of Kevin Kisner, Brian Harman, Charley Hoffman, Adam Scott and Phil Mickelson. And just behind No. 23 Patrick Reed.

RSM Classic

Austin Cook
Cook shot 62 on Friday, then fought off all comers over the final 36 holes to win for the first time on the PGA Tour. The former Arkansas Razorback won by four strokes over J.J. Spaun, though with two holes to go the lead dipped to one. Cook may be a rookie but he has quite a brief PGA history. Now 26, he actually debuted on Tour with one event in 2014 and then played seven more in 2015. In those eight starts, Cook rather remarkably racked up six top-25s. But he could never generate enough starts to get his card until last month via the Web.com Tour Finals. Cook also had two top-25s in his three starts before the RSM. It's hard to determine what to make of Cook; 14 career tournaments is a small sample size, and they were not the toughest fields. One thing we can say for sure – Cook's career-best ranking of 144th seems low, and his price in all fantasy formats is about to go much higher.

J.J. Spaun
Spaun finished solo second, the best showing of his young career and the third top-15 in his past three outings. Spaun will be an interesting guy to keep an eye on come January. Last season, he notched two of his three top-10s early in the season: at Torrey Pines and Phoenix. He's up to a career-best 117th in the OWGR.

Brian Harman
Harman has played three times this season and he hasn't finished worse than T8. On Sunday, he wrapped up a T4 that moved him into the top-25 in the OWGR for the first time. Hard to believe he didn't even qualify for the Masters back in April. But his season took off from there, winning the Wells Fargo in May, finishing second in the U.S. Open in June and running off eight top-10s the rest of the year. Harman may not have too much more upside in terms of OWGR, but it sure appears as if he has found a new gear in his career at age 30.

Ben Silverman
Like Cook, Silverman is among the 23 rookies on the PGA Tour. He tied for eighth at the RSM, giving him two top-10s in his first five starts of the season. With the Web.com reshuffle coming after the RSM, Silverman moved up to sixth, putting him in prime position to get into a lot of fields once play resumes in January. The next reshuffle isn't until after Riviera in mid-February.

Brandt Snedeker
Snedeker tied for 29th at the RSM, and he was thrilled with that finish after being out with an injury since June. Snedeker is now tied for 49th in the OWGR (with Gary Woodland) and, even if he falls out of the top-50, should be able to climb the rankings now that he's healthy. For golf leagues that don't draft till January (which is what the RotoWire League does), Snedeker might fall a bit under the radar.

RotoWire Value Picks

Last week: Runner-up (Fowler), two top-5s, seven top-25s, five missed cuts, one WD.
This week: Runner-up (Spaun), two top-5s, three top-10s, four top-25s, 10 missed cuts, one WD.

Bluntly, this was a brutal week. Never before have we had so many guys miss the cut, and then Webb Simpson withdrew on the weekend to be with his ailing father. But we did have some strong selections, pegging Spaun in Tier 2, Kevin Kisner (T4) in Tier 1 and, especially, Silverman (T8) as a long shot. Kelly Kraft, another long shot, tied for 22nd.