British Open Winners and Losers

Golf's third major came to a close on Monday morning with Zach Johnson winning a playoff between Louis Oosthuizen and Marc Leishman.  Johnson wins his second major championship for his career and now has two of the four majors under his belt.  Here are the winners and losers of the long weekend in Scotland.

Winner: Zach Johnson - Great weekend for the Iowan golfer. Johnson went low early on, but he faded off a little bit throughout the weekend. Zach finished strong though with a 66. Johnson bounced back from two bogeys on the back nine with a birdie on 18 to put him into the playoff with Leishman and Oosthuizen. For the most part, Johnson is underrated as a golfer. He always produces good results, wins a couple tournaments, happy to see him with another major.

Winner: Jordan Spieth - He might not have won his third straight major, but Spieth still won this weekend. Spieth battled back from a terrible second round where he looked completely out of sorts playing 18 holes over 48 hours. Spieth set himself up nicely for the final round with four birdies on the back nine. You wonder what might have happened in the final round if Spieth doesn't have a double bogey on eight or a bogey on 17th yet the criticism shouldn't be much for him. 17th was hard for almost everyone on the course.

Loser: Rickie Fowler - What a disappointing weekend for him. Fowler came in with a win at the Scottish Open the week beforehand.  And everyone had put him among the favorites. Fowler had one big round with a 66 on Saturday, but other than that, he ended up with three rounds of 70 including one over on the final day when there was an opportunity for him to be near the top of the leaderboard. Fowler failed to capitalize all weekend.

Loser: Dustin Johnson - Sigh. Another bad weekend for Dustin Johnson after starting out so hot. He will be a favorite heading into Whistling Straits as he would have been in a playoff had it not been for a club grounding. Johnson started off with a fury only to play like a different golfer on the weekend. Since a birdie on 15th on Saturday, Johnson had eight bogeys, two birdies and one par in the next eleven holes... Not great.

Winner: Amateurs -  This was one of the best displays of amateurism I've seen since my last visit to PornHub.  They were great all tournament long. Not sure if St. Andrews had something to do with things, but it made for an exciting tournament. Adds something to it for Wisconsin with Jordan Niebrugge go low on Sunday to win the Top Amateur. Ollie Schniderjans, Paul Dunne and Ashley Chesters all played great as well.  Have a feeling you will see a couple of those names on the tour in a couple years.

Loser: Tiger Woods - What more can you say?  I don't know if I can ever consider Tiger Woods a favorite in a major championship. He played St. Andrews so well in his career and then completely falls off the map in 2015. Woods needs to keep playing events like the Greenbrier. He will not be playing in the FedEx Cup unless a wild stroke of luck. He should be playing in Canada this weekend, but of course, he's not.

Winner: John Deere Classic - Everyone said playing the John Deere before the Open Championship was a bad idea, and Johnson/Spieth put two middle fingers straight up in the air. Makes a case for other pros to play the John Deere before heading to Royal Toon next year.

Charlie.