Justin Rose celebrated golf’s return to the Olympics with a gold medal-winning performance over the weekend. While Rose celebrated his accomplishment on Sunday, fantasy golf fans kept their focus on a North American event with $4.8 million up for grabs at the John Deere Classic and millions of dollars on the line in DraftKings fantasy tournaments as well. Here is a recap of golf fantasy on the PGA Tour and Champions Tour from this past week.
John Deere Classic
PGA Tour
We start our golf fantasy recap with the PGA. Consistency was the key over the weekend as Ryan Moore won the John Deere Classic to secure his fifth-career PGA Tour title on Sunday. Moore sank a 24-foot birdie putt on the fourth hole en route to shooting a 67 in the final round to finish at 22-under, two strokes ahead of Ben Martin for the outright victory. The 33-year-old made just one bogey in 72 holes over the weekend as he recorded his first victory since he won the CIMB Classic title in Malaysia back in 2014. Meanwhile, other notable finishes included South Korea’s Whee Kim shooting a 67 to finish tied for third with Morgan Hoffmann at 17-under, following by Ricky Barnes, Kelly Kraft and Johnson Wagner at 15-under. Canadian Adam Hadwin delivered as a strong sleeper pick in this week’s fantasy tournaments by finishing tied for eighth at 14-under. Next up for the PGA Tour is the Wyndham Championship from the Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina beginning on Thursday morning. Meanwhile, Rose likely won’t be back by then after he celebrated winning gold in golf’s return as an Olympics sport. Rose was clutch down the final stretch to come out on top for the United States while Henrik Stenson won silver for Sweden and Marcus Frazer won bronze for Australia.
U.S. Senior Open Championship
Champions Tour
With the European and LPGA Tour taking another week off thanks to the Olympic golf tournaments, the Champions Tour stole its share of the spotlight this past weekend with the U.S. Senior Open Championship. However, the final round of the tournament was delayed due to heavy rains and inclement weather at the Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio and play has since been suspended. That means our golf fantasy recap won’t include the final round.
Miguel Angel Jimenez is the leader after three rounds after shooting a 69 on Saturday to get to three-under – one stroke ahead of Gene Sauers and two strokes ahead of Billy Mayfair, Loren Roberts and Ian Woosnam for the outright lead. The course at Scioto took on 2.36 inches of rain late Saturday and early Sunday and while the USGA hoped to get the first couple of groups out on some point on Monday the heavy rains were expected to continue for most of Monday. While the Champions Tour has earned its share of the spotlight over the past couple of weeks thanks to the absence of the European Tour and LPGA, that won’t be the case when the Boeing Classic tees off in a couple of weeks. The European Tour resumes play this week with the D+D Real Czech Masters while the LPGA resumes the following week with the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open.
Men’s Golf – Summer Olympics
We start our golf fantasy recap with British golfer Justin Rose, who won the gold medal in Rio. He took his time, measured the putt and tapped in to earn the gold medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics on Sunday. For the most part, the tournament came down to a two-horse race between him and Swedish golfer Henrik Stenson. Rose did a good job on Sunday to keep his lead as both players were neck-in-neck until the final hole. Both players started with 32 and Rose only had one bogey coming down the stretch, finishing the final round with a 67. The two golfers were locked at -15 on the final hole – a par 5 – and while Rose was able to get up and down to get to 16 under, Stenson faltered with a three-putt bogey. American Matt Kuchar earned a Bronze for the Americans, who were mostly disappointed with their effort. Bubbay Watson finished in a tie for eighth with Sergio Garcia (-7) while Patrick Reed came in at 11th. Rickie Fowler finished way off the pace with a final score of even in 37th place.
