The 2014 Barclays: Hunter Mahan Charges And Wins

Hunter Mahan made a huge charge Sunday to take the 2014 Barclays Championship. Mahan made a scorching charge on the back nine birding five of the eight holes including three in a row on holes 15, 16, and 17.

Mahan dropped a shot on 18, but that didn’t matter as Mahan had a nice cushion and ended up winner by two strokes ahead of Stuart Appleby, Cameron Tringale, and Jason Day.

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On the other side of the spectrum, you have to feel bad for Jim Furyk who once again couldn’t seal the deal with a 54 hole lead. Furyk had a share of the lead with Day heading into the final round. Much like the RBC Canadian Open, it’s not as if Furyk played bad, he played decent, but it just wasn’t enough.

Day played decent as well alternating birdies and bogeys from 3-7 eventually going out at 2-under par and coming in at 1-under.

Appleby was the surprise of the day as he came out of nowhere to contend for the win. Appleby went out at 1-under par, but on the back nine Appleby really turned it on birding three straight on 10, 11, and 12 and then birding 14 and 15 to shoot 6-under for the day and 12-under for the tournament.

Tringale at 12-under had a bogey-free round going until he bogeyed the final hole to drop a shot. Nevertheless, Tringale finished 5-under for the round getting him to a tie for second at 12-under par for the tournament.

Ernie Els, William McGirt, and Matt Kuchar finished in a tie for 5th at 11-under. Furyk dropped to 8th place at 10-under, Patrick Reed, Rickie Fowler, Kevin Na, and Morgan Hoffmann ended up five strokes back behind Mahan in a tie for 9th at 9-under par.

Ryder Cup Implications:

With the win, all of a sudden, Hunter Mahan should be a strong favorite to be captain’s pick by Tom Watson. He would have to be. Coming into the 2014 Barclays Keegan Bradley and Brandt Snedeker were the most likely candidates to grab two of the three picks, but they struggled this week.

Snedeker missed the cut while Bradley wasn’t in contention all week finishing T-53. Watson would have liked to have seen Snedeker, Bradley, and even Webb Simpson (who missed the cut) really put their foot down and play well, but they didn’t.

While they didn’t the other bubble players had pretty darn good tournaments. As mentioned above, Na finished inside the top 10 and given how well of a season he is having, he has to be in the mix. Bill Haas as well as he quietly had a solid week finishing in a tie for 15th.

Brendon Todd is another player that is on the bubble and he was on his way to having another very good finish, but a 5-over Sunday 76 dropped him all the way back into a tie for 46th.

Those last three spots are there for the taking and Watson has some tough decisions to make.

FedEx Cup Standings Update:

The FedEx Cup playoffs continue on into next week as the top 100 players will head on over to Norton, Massachusetts for the Deutsche Bank Championship.

With the win Mahan jumped up 61 spots to lead the standings dropping Rory McIlroy to second. Jimmy Walker also dropped a spot into 3rd, while Kuchar stayed in 4th place. Dropping two places was Bubba Watson into 5th place, Furyk dropped a spot into 6th, Day made up 27 spots into 7th place, Reed moved up a spot into 8th, Jordan Spieth fell to 9th, and Tringale made up 51 spots to get himself into the top 10.

Coming into The Barclays, Brian Davis, Nick Watney, Luke Guthrie, Rory Sabbatini, Kevin Kisner, and Jonas Blixt were all inside the top 100, but leave the Barclays on the outside of the top 100.

The golfers who ended up leapfrogging the players above were Danny Lee, Andres Romero, Paul Casey, Gonzalo-Fernandez Castano, Stewart Cink, and Hoffmann.

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