Each week on GolfChannel.com, we’ll examine which players’ stocks and trends are rising and falling in the world of golf.
RISING
Kevin Tway (+9%): Out of his father’s shadow for the first time, the big-hitting Tway closed out his first Tour win in impressive fashion, making five straight birdies to finish regulation and the playoff in Napa.
International Crown (+6%): Infinitely more interesting than the PGA Tour’s offshoot team competition, the Crown has a real chance at becoming one of the most impactful LPGA tournaments every two years – especially if it continues to be held in a golf-mad country like South Korea. This was a big win for innovative commish Mike Whan.
Sungjae Im (+5%): The 20-year-old blew away the competition on the Web last season, then tied for fourth in his first Tour start. Either he’s riding a heckuva hot streak, or he’s here to stay.
Aaron Baddeley (+2%): The four-time Tour winner has fallen on hard times, after losing his card and needing to – this is not a misprint – Monday qualify for the season-opening event in Napa. Hopefully the T-4 to start 2018-19 is a much-needed kick-start for Badds.
Tyrrell Hatton (+1%): What Ryder Cup hangover? After hugging the porcelain following Europe’s resounding win, Hatton nearly pulled off a three-peat at the European Tour’s Alfred Dunhill Links. A tip of the cap, in fact, to the four Ryder Cuppers, all of whom finished in the top 10.
FALLING
Brandt Snedeker (-1%): On cruise control with Tour title No. 10 in his sights, Sneds backed up to the field with an inward 39 to drop into a playoff that he eventually lost. How much did it hurt? He said afterward that the loss could haunt him for a few years.
Michelle Wie (-2%): The star-crossed talent went 1-3 at the International Crown as she tinkered with yet another swing – this time, a Steve Stricker-type action – to play away from pain. Ugh.
Phil (-3%): After saying that courses with narrow fairways and thick rough are now, at age 48, a waste of his time, we can dismiss his chances of ever winning that elusive U.S. Open.
Brooks (-5%): Koepka and his team complained much of the year that the three-time major winner doesn’t get any press … and that situation won’t improve now that he was found to have lied to the assembled media at the Dunhill Links. Koepka said that a fight or argument with Dustin Johnson never occurred, and that it was just another false media story; U.S. captain Jim Furyk apparently forgot those talking points and confirmed that some kind of altercation took place. Oops.
P-Reed (-6%): His post-Ryder Cup monologue looks even worse now that Furyk revealed that he told Reed, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Tiger Woods that they’d be playing together weeks prior. Reed also might have some relationship-mending to do with Woods: Not only did he embarrass him by saying publicly that Woods apologized to him after the match, but Reed suggesting that he’d rather have played with someone other than the living legend is not a good look.
Source: Internet
