Highlights and Lowlights from WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational
The WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational is in the books, with Brooks Koepka coming away with the win.
Sunday ended up not being quite as dramatic as people wanted at the St. Jude Invitational. There were still plenty of highlights and lowlights from the week.
After a bunch of our staff was high on Koepka at the British Open, no one was able to pull the trigger on him this week. A couple of us thought about it, but in the end, none of us picked him to win.
He did so in after-the-fact dramatic fashion. It came out in the news that Koepka was pretty sick on Sunday. He didn’t even get to the course for his final round tee time at the St. Jude Invitational until 45 minutes prior. Although knowing Koepka’s ability to play well without much practice should’ve eschewed any worries.
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He shot the third-best score on Sunday, carding a 65. It was only bettered by Webb Simpson and Keith Mitchell, both of whom shot 64.
Many who were turning in thought that we were going to see an epic showdown between Koepka and Rory McIlroy. It ended up not being the case, as Koepka would easily outplay Rory, 65-71.
It was a disappointing end for Rory, as he had all the momentum heading into Sunday. He tied for the best score of the week, as he shot 62 on Saturday. Right there alongside him was Jon Rahm. Rahmbo opened with a 62 on Thursday for a commanding start but was unable to hold that momentum, following up with 71-68-69.
In fact, both Rahm and Rory would both follow their 62’s up with a 71. How odd is that?
If this was a cut event, many would’ve been upset with Kevin Kisner’s start, including the man himself. He was all on his own in last place after day one, shooting a +7 77. He would turn it around, shooting 67-66-67, jumping all the way to -3 and finishing T-27th.
The lone 63 of the week belonged to Marc Leishman. He posted that on Saturday, bringing him into contention for Sunday’s round. He played well but was unable to catch Koepka, shooting 67 to get to -12 and a finish of third place.
Although nowhere near as bad as J.B. Holmes at the British Open, Thorbjorn Olesen had a Sunday round that he would rather forget. He entered Sunday at -8, only a handful of shots back from McIlroy and Koepka. Where Koepka shot a -5 65, Olesen went the other way. He would post a +5 75, falling all the way to a T-27th finish.
If he would’ve shot par on Sunday, he would have finished T-9th, and earned around an extra $120,000.
There were a handful of players who entered Sunday at -4. Kevin Na, Tyrrell Hatton, and Justin Harding were a part of that group. They would all shoot 74 to drop to even for the tournament and finished T-43rd.
On the other side of it, Tommy Fleetwood and Rafael Cabrera Bello made nice climbs up the leaderboard on Sunday. Both would shoot 66, with Fleetwood finishing T-4th and Bello finishing T-12th.
Next. Wyndham Championship: Top 10 power rankings at Sedgefield. dark
Koepka was the man to beat and he gets a nice bit of rest as the season nears an end. The PGA now heads to the Wyndham Championship for the last regular-season event of the 2018-2019 season.