The Punters De-Brief: Scintillating Snedeker sluices up

A happy Brandt Snedeker with his two new trophies

Our man reflects on a poor week in Georgia, where Brandt Snedeker, un-fancied by Steve, wins the Tour Championship with ease, bagging the FedEx Cup loot to boot! He may have lost this week, but what has our man learnt for next year?

With his coach's son gravely ill, following a car crash just last week, Brandt Snedeker put in a majestic display of putting to win both the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup. He didn't look at a leaderboard all day and claimed he didn't think about winning until the final hole, which was when he hit his worse shot of the day! It mattered not. By then his lead was four and a bogey at the last resulted in comfortable three-stroke victory.

In his post tournament press conference he said, "I was so calm on the last nine holes I couldn't believe it." And nor could I! He went on to look around the room and add that "90% of you all didn't pick me to win today because I've never done it before and I don't blame you. So today was a day to prove a bunch of people wrong, that I can play with the lead and handle the pressure."

My Bets
Having dismissed Snedeker from the word go, I've had a poor week and I definitely belong amongst the bunch of people the winner spoke of in his press conference. Having witnessed Snedeker do nothing but crumble under pressure in the past I was very surprised by his performance yesterday and its cost me.

As detailed in the In-Play Blog, I quite fancied Justin Rose to get the job done yesterday but he missed far too many short putts. With the likes of Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy dramatically underperforming, I could be picky and point to the fact that none of Snedeker's rivals really put any heat on him but that would be churlish. You simply have to applaud the way he handled the extreme pressure. He was the first player to amass a double-figure under-par total since the greens were changed before the 2008 event and it was a fantastic front-running performance.

Player to follow
I can't believe Luke Donald isn't going to eventually take this title. He came into the event under something of a cloud and yet he still managed to finish third - his third straight top-three finish at East Lake. If he makes it next year, he could be worth following.

What have we learnt for next year?
Having sited putting as the most important stat, it probably shouldn't be a surprise to see that one of the game's most renowned putters went on to win the event. I'd backed Phil Mickelson on the premise that his putting was in fine fettle but he never got it going at all this week, but a look at the recent stats to see who's rolling their potato best is definitely the way to go.

This was the first year I'd noticed a really strong correlation between East Lake and another Donald Ross designed course, Sedgefield - home of the Wyndham Championship. Ryan Moore, Webb Simpson, Justin Rose and of course, Brandt Snedeker all have very good form at Sedgefield and this year's Wyndham champ - Sergio Garcia, has also played well at East lake in the past. Now that Sedgefield has also changed over to Bermuda greens that link is only likely to get stronger.

I've found this a tricky heat to bet on since it's been the FedEx Cup decider and I'll be keeping stakes to a minimum again next year but one way to go could be in-running. With such a small field, it's quite easy to make up a lot of ground with one good round. Snedeker trailed by five at halfway but his superb Saturday 64 saw him slice through the field to lead with a round to go.

It's been a poor week for yours truly but I'm not going to sit and sulk. We have the eagerly awaited Ryder Cup to look forward to this week and I'll be back tomorrow or on Wednesday morning with a preview but until then, there's already plenty of reading on site for the biannual battle here.

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