Thomas wins successive PGA Tour money titles

Tiger Woods finished off the PGA Tour season by tapping in for par to win the Tour Championship, a moment that ended any doubts that he could win again after four surgeries on his lower back. And then the moment was gone.

Hours later, Woods and 17 other players were headed to France for the all-consuming Ryder Cup. And with barely enough time to digest Europe winning and Patrick Reed pouting, the PGA Tour started up a new season in California. A few nuggets were lost in the quick transition.

Justin Thomas tied for fifth at the Tour Championship, and that was enough for him to win the PGA Tour money title for the second straight year after earning $8,694,821, beating out Dustin Johnson by $237,469.

The PGA Tour no longer talks about money in the FedEx Cup era, though Thomas still wins a trophy. The Arnold Palmer Award is given to the leading money winner. Thomas became the first back-toback winner of the award since Woods in 2006 and 2007.

Johnson, meanwhile, won the Vardon Trophy for the lowest scoring average (the PGA Tour has the Byron Nelson Award, so Johnson gets two trophies). Johnson won for the second time in three years. The first time, in 2016, he wasn’t sure what it was.

Brooks Koepka won PGA Tour player of the year, which was no surprise considering his two major championships. The only time someone won two majors and was not PGA Tour player of the year was in 1990, when Nick Faldo wasn’t a PGA Tour member.

For the first time in 10 years, the tour’s three main awards were won by three players – Koepka, Thomas and Johnson. In 2008, Padraig Harrington was the player of the year, Vijay Singh won the money title and Sergio Garcia won the Vardon Trophy.

Singh won the money title by $826,094 over Woods while playing 17 more events. That was the year Woods had seasonending knee surgery in June, so he was ineligible for the Vardon Trophy (Woods played only 20 rounds). Harrington won two majors that year.