Around the wider world of golf: Ariya Jutanugarn won the LPGA's CME Group Tour Championship and Lexi Thompson won the Race to the CME Globe; Jon Rahm won the ET's DP World Tour Championship and Tommy Fleetwood won the Race to Dubai; Brooks Koepka won the Dunlop Phoenix Tournament on the Japan Golf Tour; Céline Boutier won the Sanya Ladies Open on the LET; and Brady Schnell won the 112 VISA Open de Argentina on the PGA TOUR Latinoamérica.
The RSM Classic had a relatively boring finish Sunday... and I mean that as a compliment. Other than Koepka with his 9-stroke runaway in Japan, no player this weekend made their victory look more casual and inevitable than Austin Cook.
All Cook did was cruise through his final round. He bogeyed the second hole -- many players bogeyed early in the final round, but it was only Austin's second bogey all week -- and then calmly made pars and birdies on his way in, including birdies on 15, 17 and 18 to win by four.
Calm. Relaxing. Uneventful. Even, as I said, boring.
Part of that was due to his caddie, Kip Henley, being so experienced. He knew how to keep his young charge "in the moment," and it showed. This was Austin's first win, although you wouldn't have known it to watch. He got it in only 14 starts -- again, he looked like he was far more experienced than that. He seemed unimpressed by the number of veterans chasing him, or by the low scores being shot by the other Web.com Tour grads.
It was a good way for him to end the "official" slate of events in this PGA Tour calendar year. Now he can enjoy the holidays... or perhaps play some other events around the world. Whatever he chooses to do for the rest of this year, he'll do it with his first Limerick Summary firmly in pocket.
The first-timer did it in style.The photo came from the tournament page at PGATOUR.com.
The field chased him futilely while
Cook played like a freak—
Just two bogeys all week!
And he knew it—it showed in his smile.
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