2015 Northern Trust Open results: Sergio implodes, James Hahn wins and more from Riviera

The Northern Trust Open consistently produces some of the best early-season golf on the PGA Tour. It’s the only stop in the Los Angeles area and it’s played on one of the great classic courses in America, Riviera. Even though some of the bigger names pass on it, Riv is probably the best course on the PGA Tour’s rota. And it consistently produces a big name winner and/or late-Sunday dramatics. It certainly did this year. Here’s what we learned Sunday.

We always seem to want the biggest names and the biggest stars to dominate and win. It’s good for the game and popularity of the the PGA Tour. But James Hahn going toe-to-toe with Dustin Johnson, maybe the most naturally talented player not named Rory McIlroy, was wonderful on Sunday night.

Hahn is ranked 297th in the world. He doesn’t have some big-name teacher like Butch Harmon, instead opting to watch YouTube videos to make his swing “look pretty.” He’s not some lace-curtain prodigy who was given every resource to mold and develop his obvious talent. At one point, Hahn sold shoes at Nordstrom’s to get by and keep money in his pocket.

He’s made some noise on Tour at different points, but nothing like Sunday’s show at Riviera, where he beat some of Dustin Johnson’s best in extra holes.

Hahn went birdie at the 10th, maybe the best and most dangerous par-4 on the PGA Tour, and birdie at the 14th to get his first PGA Tour win. Birdie-birdie isn’t backing into anything and this was against the cream of the PGA Tour. He stared at the ground as Johnson missed the putt that would have sent it to another hole, opting to listen to the crowd’s reaction as a signal for whether he’d just earned a career-defining achievement.

The shotmaking was incredible to watch, and enriched by the fact that it came from the underdog. We didn’t get the big-name winner, but the story, and the way he did it in a dramatic playoff, was just as good.

Sergio went Sergio down the stretch. He was in control as Dustin stumbled ahead of him and made an inexcusable bogey at the par-5 17th hole. But then Sergio came up behind him and did the same with an array of ugly swings both from the tee and with his irons, adding the usual substandard strokes with the putter. Then he yanked one left on the 18th tee and bogeyed the last.

So Sergio went from a one-shot lead with two to play to completely out of the three-man playoff. It was a Sergio-style implosion.

After the round, we didn’t get the typical temperamental Spaniard, but instead some rational and even-handed loser who said he didn’t “deserve to win.” Sergio told Peter Kostis not to be fooled by the ending, and that his game and his swing wasn’t there the entire week and he shouldn’t have won. After the bogey-bogey finish, we expected (and maybe wanted) the Sergio that’s sniping at the questioner or completely dejected at how something was done to him, not by him. There was none of that.

I thought it was pretty refreshing and insightful. He may be lying to himself and to us, but it was certainly an interesting change of tone from a guy whose every word we critique.

What must Tiger Woods have thought as he sat at home and watched a leaderboard topped by Vijay Singh, Retief Goosen, and Sergio Garcia? At one point or another, all three were the top contemporary challengers (if there was such a thing) to Tiger’s dominance at the majors. It was odd to see the 46-year-old Goosen, who had major back surgery and has made little noise on Tour in several years, hold the lead after each of the first three rounds. The 2001 and 2004 U.S. Open winner was once thought to be a non-Tiger favorite at each major championship, but injuries wrecked much of his shot at success in the past decade.

Singh came close to being the second-oldest winner in the history of the PGA Tour. A victory on Sunday would have come on his 52nd birthday. The three-time major winner is still out there each week on the PGA Tour, plugging away with little left to prove. But he’s maybe the most determined grinder and range rat of this generation, and he’s undoubtedly motivated by the recent PED drama and lawsuit contretemps with Tim Finchem and the PGA Tour.

Singh has been Champions Tour eligible for a couple years now, but he obviously still has the game to occasionally pop up on a leaderboard at the right place.

Riviera is one of those places. The classic layout is a ball striker’s paradise and is such a nice departure from the monotonous TPC venues we get every other week on the PGA Tour. This stretch of the West Coast swing (Torrey Pines-Pebble Beach-Riviera) is probably the best slate of courses of the entire season, and Riviera might be the best of them all. Pebble and Torrey have the coastal views, but this is a beautiful test of golf. It overflows with character and history, but also provides those unique challenges like a bunker in the middle of a par-3 green or the drivable 10th, the best par-4 on the PGA Tour. The tournament also almost always produces a world-class winner and/or extra-hole playoff fireworks down the stretch.

It’s been years since Tiger patronized his hometown event, the first he ever played in as a 16-year-old. But just because the biggest moneymaker in the game has no time for it doesn’t mean it’s not one of the best tournaments all season. The course makes it a must-watch and the throwback names that popped up on the leaderboard this weekend only emphasized what makes it such a unique and great venue. When we hit June and get the drudgery of some TPC bomber’s paradise week after week, we’ll wish we had more like Riv.

As we documented in our “worst shots of the year” review in December, even the best players in the world put swings on the ball that look like some of the hacks you might take at your local muni on a Saturday afternoon. Almost weekly, there are ghastly chunks, duffs, shanks, tops, slices, hooks, and near-whiffs. This Sunday, Paul Casey, who actually made the playoff, hit a horrendous shank damn near off the course from just 178 yards out in the fairway.

Casey could argue he was just trying to keep it on a straight line.

That’s about as bad a shank as you’ll get out on Tour, and the kind of path you might take on your adventure towards the hole. But what Casey did next, however, is why he’s a pro and you’re not. The Englishman managed to pop one up and over some trees to eight feet, can the putt, and walk off with a par. So on a hole where he made one of the worst swings in his competitive career, he came away undamaged. Even when these guys look like chops, they’re still a thousand times better than you.

Spieth has become a bit of a master at the Sunday backdoor finish. He’s completely off the radar, off the leaderboard, and out of view of the TV cameras. But he’s there inside the top 10 at the end, and walking away with another big check. This Sunday, however, he should have pushed his way up the board and into a playoff.

As the leaders behind him caved, Spieth had a chance to join the party in extra holes. He thought he needed a birdie to catch up with Sergio Garcia and Dustin Johnson, but a par would have been enough. Instead, Spieth made an ugly bogey with one of the shakier putting strokes we saw all day.

It was a gnarly looking stroke and one that would cost him a spot in the three-man playoff. The way he played the entire hole wasn’t too pretty.

Spieth is still one of the best players in the world. He crushed some of the top talents in back-to-back weeks in Australia and Florida just two months ago. But each time he gets close, and doesn’t close a second PGA Tour win, more questions will come down about his ability to perform under pressure. I don’t think it’s anything that will reach a critical point because he’s going to win again, but it’s one of the problems the best of the top young stars always have to deal with and that putt on the 18th provided some ammo.

That concludes the annual West Coast swing as the Tour now heads east for the annual Florida swing. Here are the final results from Riviera.