It appears that Brandt Snedeker has fully recovered from the rib injury that forced him to miss several weeks early in the 2013 season and is ready to finish the year just like he started it.
Snedeker picked up his second win of the year and his eighth top-10 finish in just 16 starts this year. Counting back to last year he has 11 top-10 finishes in his last 20 events. He is No. 3 in the 2013 FedEx Cup standings and No. 7 in the world.
He finished 2012 with three top-10 finishes including a win at the Tour Championship in the FedEx Cup Playoffs, which earned him the FedEx Cup Championship and a check for $10 million.
Snedeker started this year with four top-10 finishes in his first five events. He was third at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in Hawaii, finished runner-up to Tiger Woods at Torrey Pines in the Farmers Insurance Open and to Phil Mickelson at the Waste Management Phoenix Open.
He broke through for his first win of the year at Pebble Beach in the AT&T National Pro-Am. It was there that he began having pain in his rib cage area and was forced to take several weeks away from the tour to heal properly.
He missed cuts at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Shell Houston Open when he did retun to the tour.
Snedeker rebounded with a T-6 finish at the Masters, T-59 at the RBC Heritage, a T-8 at the Players Championship and two more missed cuts.
He played solid golf at Merion in the U.S. Open finishing T-17. He picked up another top-10 finish at the AT&T National at Congressional and a T-11 at the Open Championship.
This is the sixth win of his career and brings his total earning to just under $21 million. He is considered one of the best putters on the PGA Tour. When he can find the fairway and put the ball on the green, he is a favorite to get the win.
Four players finished tied for second in Canada. William McGirt, Dustin Johnson, Matt Kuchar and Jason Bohn all were 13-under par three shots behind Snedeker.
Veteran Aaron Baddeley had missed 10 consecutive cuts coming into the Canadian Open. He had not made a cut since April and finally posted a good finish at 11-under par which was good for T-9.
Rookie of the Year candidate David Lingmirth was among the leaders after 54-holes, slipped to a final round 75 and finished at ten-under par T-12. He has two runner-up finishes this year plus a T-9 at the Greenbrier Classic. He has earned $1.7 million and is No. 31 in the FedEx Cup race.
Ernie Els, Bubba Watson and Trevor Immelman finished T-21.
Luke Donald continued his struggles in 2013 shooting 73-71 even-par and missing the cut which came at one-under par.
The PGA Tour next moves to Akron for the lucrative no-cut, WGC-Bridgestone. Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Rory McIlroy and all of golf’s top names will be in the field vying for a share of the $8.75 million purse.