Recapping the Country Club Sports

BMW Championship

Dustin Johnson

After the 3rd week of the Fed Ex Cup Playoffs, it is becoming apparent that the #1 spot in my power rankings is not a place any professional golfer would want to occupy.  Dustin Johnson held down the #1 spot for the 1st 2 weeks, and while he was in the hunt at the Barclays, he had a rough week in round 2 at the Deutsche Bank.  After dropping him from the top slot for this week's BMW Championship, he responded and left Chicago with his 2nd victory of the season. I knew I was taking a chance putting a relatively inexperienced Jason Day in the one hole this week, but after back to back top 5 finishes, he shot 9 over and finished in a tie for 54th out of 70 players.  I figured since I rated him at the top of the list he probably would drop off a little bit, but I never saw this horrendous week coming.  I feel sorry for the player I rank as the favorite at the Tour Championship, as he clearly has no chance to win the tournament.  My apologies go out in advance to either Matt Kuchar, Dustin Johnson, or Steve Stricker, one of which will be #1 for the final playoff event.  I'm really glad Dustin took down this tournament, as he has been playing great all year long and was definitely due some good breaks.  If not for a few extremely unlucky events, he could have had several more than his 2 wins on the season, including his first major at the PGA Championship.  He handled all his bad fortune with extreme class, especially the debacle at the PGA, and clearly has the mental game to be a multiple major winner.  He has quickly become my favorite player on the tour, and I expect him to be at or near the top of the rankings for years to come.


U.S. Open

When Kim Clijsters had a child a couple of years ago, I figured we weren't likely to see her back competing for major championships ever again, much less this quickly.  She is now 2 for 2 at the U.S. Open since becoming a mother, and her dominating performance in the final showed she's not anywhere close to being finished.  While I'm glad Clijsters saved what was overall a pretty bad tournament for my predictions, I was disappointed not to see my future wife, Caroline Wozniacki on the other side of the net in the final.  Caroline was playing great coming in to her semifinal with Vera Zvonareva, but she showed once again that when she plays the top players, she is vulnerable to the power games they possess.  Wozniacki relies on her consistency, speed, and redirection of pace to defeat opponents, but when she meets players such as Clijsters, the Williams sisters, or Zvonareva, she will often lose if they are on their game.  It's obvious an aggressive player who usually dictates play is much more built to win majors than a defensive grinder, and no one demonstrates this fact better than Wozniacki.

The men's final between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic was rained out today, which was fine by me considering all the other sports options of the day.  I'm sure Djokovic was more than pleased with today's rain in New York, as it gives him an extra day to recover from his epic 5-set victory over Roger Federer in the semis.  Djokovic has shown a tendency to get tight in big matches in the past, but he overcame this reputation by saving a match point against the greatest tennis player of all time and then winning the match 7-5 in the 5th.  It was an amazing match, and while I started the match cheering for Federer, Novak won me over by the end.  It was good to see him finally break through against Roger, who knocked him out the past couple years and has held over him for his whole career.  Nadal-Djokovic has huge implications, as it will result in a 1st time U.S. Open champion, and possibly complete the career Grand Slam for Nadal.  Nadal has yet to drop a set in the tournament, and I can't wait to see if he can add the final piece of hardware to his trophy case tomorrow afternoon.