Brian Harman’s 28-foot putt on the final hole at the Wells Fargo Championship might have been greeted by heavy sighs from our contingent of Dustin Johnson managers, their man denied a play-off and a chance to become the first player since Tiger Woods in the 2007-08 season to win four consecutive tournaments on the PGA Tour - and, more, importantly, a chance to win them more points than he collected for his share of second.
Still, though, considering there might have been some pre-Wells Fargo nerves regarding the state of his back following that mishap in Georgia, they’d have been happy enough with his runners-up spot. And those who made him captain for his return, thereby doubling his points’ haul, would have been beyond happy. Until learning that Johnson captained the line-ups of just about every one of our leading contenders.
So, in that sense, the €15 million man’s efforts in North Carolina were pretty much cancelled out in the battle for spots in the upper reaches of the overall leaderboard, our top five managers - Brendan McCheane, James Quill, Margaret Ghent, Cian Poland and Cóbhan Phillipson - all having Johnson as captain.
The key, then, was who else had they on board? Well, the top four all had Jon Rahm too, so his fourth place finish couldn’t divide them, Paul Casey’s share of 12th enough to keep Brendan top of the pile - his cause not helped by both Kevin Kisner and Wesley Bryan missing the cut.
James, meanwhile, somehow held on to second place despite missed cuts from Webb Simpson and Angel Cabrera, with another four of the team not in the Wells Fargo field. Margaret could top that by one, five of her players weren’t in Fantasy Golf action, so it was left to Johnson, Rahm and Casey to fly the Robin flag and do enough between them to lift her from ninth to third.
Cian and Cóbhan were the big movers in the top five, up from 13th and 34th respectively, neither manager’s progress halted by the withdrawal of Ernie Els during the second round, a back injury putting paid to his hopes.
But Patrick Reed’s share of 12th, added to Johnson and Rahm’s fine work, helped propel Cian in an upwards direction, while Cóbhan Els’ woes, combined with Vijay Singh’s missed cut, were more than alleviated by having none other than the winner Harman in his line-up. So, his victory allied to captain Johnson’s efforts, along with contributions from Phil Mickelson (joint 18th) and Francesco Molinari (joint 24th), sent him soaring to fifth.
Nobody, though, could top Kevin Liston’s Wells Fargo yield, No Handicap featuring Harman, Johnson and Rahm - with Mickelson completing their scoring.
Week six should prove more profitable for the bulk of our managers with two tournaments in the schedule, the Players Championship and the slightly less star-studded Portuguese Open.
