Spiderman Camilo Villegas Takes Home Tour Championship Victory

Have you ever seen Camilo Villegas read a putt?  He crouches down behind the ball like Spiderman ready to shoot his web and swing from building to building. Well, Villegas did a lot of web spinning on Sunday. 

Though he started five shots behind the leader Sergio Garcia, Villegas lit up the back nine with a string of birdies. He played the final 11 holes at five under for a final round score of 66.

And did I mention the victory ended in a sudden death playoff with Sergio Garcia on the par three 18th? If either Kim or Mickelson had made their birdie putts on the final hole of regulation, they would have been included in the playoff, but the breaks didn’t go their way. 

Spidey did not have to do much to win the playoff. Garcia had an awful tee shot putting him in the right rough by the green. Villegas made a par for the win. This would be his second win in as many tries, and they are his first wins on the PGA Tour. 

Villegas hails from Colombia, not the usual place to breed golfing greats.  Plus, Colombia’s Spiderman is not a very big guy—clocking in at 5’ 9’’ and 160 lbs. This hot young 26-year-old gets some amazing power off the tee. 

He has a compact back swing, which allows him to put all of his energy into a strong hip rotation and fast swing speed. Villegas may be small, but he can definitely hit the long ball. Although Villegas won the tournament he did not win the Fed Ex Cup—that victory went to Vijay Singh.

The Fed Ex Cup is a PGA Tour invented playoff consisting of four events: the Barclays, Deutsche Bank Championship, BMW Championship, and the Tour Championship. Whoever has the most points after the Tour Championship wins the Fed Ex Cup prize of 10 million dollars. 

The purpose of the Fed Ex Cup is to increase interest in the tour as the season winds down. Winning the Fed Ex Cup is great for one’s bank account, but in terms of carving out one’s status as a golfing legend, it’s meaningless. 

Last year Tiger Woods took home the Tour Chamionship trophy along with the Fed Ex Cup prize. This year however the finals were more complicated.

Vijay Singh was never in contention at the Tour Championship, unable to break 70 in all four rounds, yet, he brought home more money than the winner of the tournament.  That seems a bit problematic.

Don’t worry I’m sure the PGA Tour is hard at work. We can look forward to a more complicated points system next year, preventing the irrelevancy of future Fed Ex Cups.  

But back to Spidey—sure Singh may have taken home a bigger paycheck, but that does not really matter. 

As Benjamin Parker says to his nephew Peter, “with great power comes great responsibility.” I hope golf’s resident Spiderman takes this message to heart.

He has great power and now he has the responsibility of maintaining his status as golf’s new superhero. With Tiger’s return still many moons away, we need some new guys to root for—I’m going with Spiderman.