After this year’s links swing came to a fitting close across the revered layouts of the Old Course, Kingsbarns and Carnoustie last week at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, europeantour.com has crunched all the numbers to crown Branden Grace the 2015 ‘King of the Links’.
In what was something of a festival of links golf in The 2015 Race to Dubai, we were treated to eight tournaments contested across traditional, well-established European layouts or modern link style courses in the United States.
And while it was Grace who we eventually crowned links King, it was a close run thing…
THE WINNERS
The links season began back in late May in Northern Ireland, where Royal County Down – one of the top ranked links courses in the world – played host to the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open hosted by the Rory Foundation. Denmark’s Soren Kjeldsen emerged victorious after a three-way play-off with Englishmen Danny Willett and Eddie Pepperell with all three of that trio also performing well across the eight events featured in this study.
Next up, in something of a different test to County Down, the US Open was held at a hard-baked Chambers Bay in Washington as the eight year old Robert Trent Jones Jnr course provided American Jordan Spieth with his second Major triumph in succession.
The respected Gullane Golf Club hosted the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open as American Rickie Fowler continued his links love affair in July, while it was his compatriot Zach Johnson who prevailed on the Old Course in The 144th Open Championship at St Andrews.
Kiradech Aphibarnrat triumphed in the inaugural Saltire Energy Paul Lawrie Match Play at Murcar Links in Scotland, while Australian Jason Day finally broke his Major duck in the US PGA on the banks of Lake Michigan at Pete Dye’s links style masterpiece, Whistling Straits.
Two weeks after winning his maiden European Tour title in the Czech Republic, Thomas Pieters was victorious again in early September as the Belgian finished in top spot on Harry Colt’s Kennemer G&CC in the Netherlands at the KLM Open, while just last week Thorbjorn Olesen bounced back from injury to tame the famous Old Course and Carnoustie plus the modern links masterpiece at Kingsbarns to win the Dunhill Links.
THE KING
But in the end, after examining all the numbers, it was not one of the victors that we crowned King of the Links but South Africa’s Grace.
Why? Let’s find out.
Grace, who showed his prowess on these hard and fast, windswept, coastal layouts by becoming the youngest ever winner of the Dunhill Links back in 2012, played in five of the eight events staged on links or links style courses this year – namely the US Open, the Scottish Open, The Open, the US PGA and the Dunhill.
The 27 year old, six times a European Tour winner including twice earlier this year, made the cut in 100 per cent or five out of five of those five starts, with top five finishes at both the US Open and US PGA complemented by top 20s at the Scottish Open and The Open and a tied 30th place last week at the Dunhill.
That gave the Pretorian an average finishing position of 14th place as Grace earned a total of €1,169,121 over those five starts with an average pay cheque of €273,701 per event.
Grace’s scoring over the five events was stellar, as you would imagine, averaging at 69.1 strokes per round over the links swing.
Easy then, to see why Branden Grace is this year’s King of the Links.
A CLOSE SECOND
Runners-up spot in 2015 King of the Links goes to Brooks Koepka, who pushed Grace all the way in the race to be crowned links top dog.
The American has been in sparkling form this year having not finished outside the top 22 since June – a period which included his participation in five of the eight links-staged events on the 2015 schedule.
Most notably, Koepka finished tied tenth in The Open, tied fifth in the US PGA and tied second last week in Scotland, accruing earnings of €1,047,052 at an average of €209,410 per start.
The Floridian, matching Grace, scored at an average of 69.1 strokes per round while his average finish over his five starts was an impressive 11th.
THE BIG BOYS
It goes without saying that Jordan Spieth has had a blinding year. The 22 year old, who has amassed in excess of $22m in on course earnings in 2015, of course would have been crowned King of the Links on total earnings alone with his win at Chambers Bay plus tied fourth and second placed finishes in St Andrews and Whistling Straits respectively. The boy wonder, who didn’t play the requisite four events of the links swing to qualify for this study, amassed a gargantuan €3,013,205 over those three starts.
Similarly, Jason Day, too, earned well in excess of €2m thanks to tied ninth, fourth and first place finishes in the same events while Louis Oosthuizen also garnered nearly €1.6m thanks to two runner-up finishes – in Washington and at St Andrews – plus a tied 30th place in Wisconsin.
THE OTHERS
Alternatively titled, best of the rest. While no player contested all eight events to be staged on links or links style courses in 2015, seven players competed in seven of them, namely Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton, David Howell, Alex Levy, James Morrison, Andy Sullivan and Marc Warren.
Sullivan made cuts in five of his seven starts, while out of the six events they played in the links swing, Luke Donald and Marc Warren both made five cuts.
Justin Rose impressed in his four starts – at the US Open, Scottish Open, Open and US PGA – with tied sixth and fourth place finishes at St Andrews and Whistling Straits earning the Englishman €777,630, while Irish Open winner Kjeldsen and up and comer Eddie Pepperell also both earned more than €500,000 in their six starts.
Elsewhere, there were two course records in the eight links based events – Max Kieffer with a six under par 65 at Royal County Down and Thorbjorn Olesen with a seven under par 63 at Gullane – while we saw five holes-in-one, too, from Felipe Aguilar (Scottish Open), Daniel Brooks (The Open), Magnus A Carlsson (KLM Open), Paul Dunne (Dunhill Links) and Wade Ormsby (KLM Open).
But to the winner, the spoils. Congratulations Branden Grace – 2015 King of the Links.
