Smith, Blixt win delayed playoff
AVONDALE, La. — Cameron Smith stood on the edge of the 18th green, wiping away tears at a ceremony complete with alligator-skin championship belts and a silver chalice.
The 23-year-old Australian, the youngest and least accomplished player left on the course, had been painstakingly close to his first PGA Tour victory — from the final hole of regulation at the Zurich Classic on Sunday night through the playoff yesterday.
He kept his emotions in check long enough to stick a 58-yard lob wedge within 3A feet of the pin at the fourth playoff hole — the par-5 18th — and sink his birdie putt.
The sequence lifted him and teammate Jonas Blixt to the first championship under the Zurich Classic’s new team format. And it finally vanquished the feisty team of South Carolina residents Kevin Kisner and Scott Brown.
Kisner and Brown had rallied with a final round of 12-under-par 60 on Sunday. It was capped by a 95-foot chip-in for eagle by Kisner as darkness fell at TPC Louisiana.
“It was pretty cool to knock the putt in for the win,” said Smith, who along with Blixt had missed potential winning putts from 9-10 feet on earlier playoff holes. “I guess it would have felt a little bit different if Jonas had done it for my first win.
“To have a putt to win on the PGA Tour when you’ve been working toward it your whole life is a completely different feeling. It felt like the longest (3A-footer) I’ve ever hit.”
The Zurich Classic was the first team event on the PGA Tour since the Walt Disney World National Team Championship in 1981.
The tournament began with 80 teams and players choosing teammates. Many said they chose friends on the tour rather than research whose game best complemented their own. The new format attracted half of the top 30 players in the world.
For most of the week, players raved about the relaxing conditions. They and their caddies could talk strategy, and players took comfort in knowing their teammates could pick them up. That was especially the case during the best-ball second and final rounds as well as the playoff — players played their own balls and teams took the better score each hole. In the first and third rounds, teammates alternated shots.
“You support each other, and it feels good to have someone to lean on,” Blixt said, nodding at Smith. “Having a great teammate like him, it’s a walk in the park.”
But, in the end, lining up a winning putt — with $1.02 million and 400 FedEx Cup points on the line for each teammate — wasn’t much easier.
“I thought after winning twice (on the PGA Tour), it would be a little less nerve-racking trying to finish it off, but it still got me a little bit,” Blixt said. “Doing it for the third time, I mean, this is the most fun one, I must say.”