Grading the BMW Championship

Zach Johnson and Jim Furyk both get an "A," Rory McIlroy and Bubba Watson were not even close to the top of the class.

By Kyle Porter

Sep 16, 2013 at 11:21 am ET • 2 min read

Zach Johnson won the BMW Championship on Monday with a bogey-free 65. (USATSI)

Zach Johnson is the most underrated golfer on the PGA Tour and has been for some time.

The evidence:

According to Justin Ray of ESPN, with his win at the BMW Championship Johnson has now joined Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson, and Adam Scott as the only other golfer with 10 PGA Tour wins and a major since 2004. All no-brainer hall-of-famers.
Of the active golfers on the PGA Tour, under 50 only Woods, Mickelson, Davis Love III, David Duval, Jim Furyk, Steve Stricker, Justin Leonard, David Toms, and Ernie Els have more wins than Johnson.
Johnson is one of only 109 golfers in the history of the PGA Tour with double-digit wins.

I was impressed with Johnson's final-round 65 on Monday but I'm more impressed by how little his career resume is talked about.

Asked who the great golfers of our time are and you're likely to get the Tiger and Phil answer but you're also more likely to hear names like Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Hunter Mahan, Brandt Snedeker, and even Rickie Fowler.

Those guys aren't bad golfers but they're hardly as accomplished as the 37-year-old Johnson.

Sure, it's not sexy to be a fan of the 5'11 dude who played at Drake and hits his driver as far as Dustin Johnson hits his 8-iron but 10 PGA Tour wins is 10 PGA Tour wins.

On Monday Johnson overcame a three-stroke deficit to Furyk and, playing in the penultimate group, shot a bogey-free round to take home the third of four FedEx Cup playoff events. Here's a look at his scorecard:

The stretch run was impressive, too.

Johnson's birdies on Nos. 16-17 were punctuated by exaggerated fist pumps -- not fist pumps Tiger would be proud of -- but fist pumps nonetheless.

And that's kind of the story of Johnson's career.

Here are our grades for the BMW Championship:

Player	Grade	Analysis
	A	Zach Johnson won $1.4 million on Monday, up to that point he'd only won $2.3 million all year.
	A	I'm trying to reconcile the fact that Jim Furyk has blown six straight 54-hole leads with the fact that he shot the sixth 59 in PGA Tour history at the BMW Championship. Ultimately the 59 wins out.
	B	Tiger Woods didn't win but he got what he came for which was to reclaim the No. 1 spot in the FedEx Cup standings from Henrik Stenson.
	C	Sergio Garcia's round with Tiger on Saturday kind of came and went. He finished 5 under though which was all right and, despite dropping a spot, sneaked into the Tour Championship (he's in 25th place).
	D	Bubba Watson never broke 69 at the BMW Championship and, as a result, will not have a spot in the Tour Championship.
	D	Rory McIlory also missed out on playing in East Lake as he opened with a 78-77. He didn't finish last but the defending champ finishing T59 at Conway Farms is a fitting end to a disappointing year.