Snedeker closes out wire-to-wire win
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Brandt Snedeker began the Wyndham Championship with history. He ended it with a victory.
Snedeker earned his ninth PGA Tour title Sunday, three days after opening with an 11-under-par 59 at Sedgefield Country Club.
He closed with a 65 for a threestroke victory in the regular-season finale, breaking a tie with C.T. Pan on the final hole with a birdie and Pan’s double bogey in the group ahead.
Snedeker finished at 21-under 259 for his first win since 2016 and his second at the tournament to close what the Nashville native and former Vanderbilt University player called “the most stressful week I’ve ever had in professional golf.”
“Shooting 59 on Thursday, your expectations go through the roof,” said Snedeker, who expressed pride he could “cap it off the way we did today, to play pretty much a flawless round of golf.”
Pan shot a 66 to tie for second with Webb Simpson, who matched his career-best with a 62.
“I feel like it was a round I needed to make a push to the leaderboard,” Simpson said. “Brandt’s obviously had a great week … so I knew it was going to take something super low.”
Snedeker opened the tournament with the 59 that made him the first tour player this year and just the 10th ever to break 60, then on the final day played 29 holes at 5 under to seal it. He’s the fifth tour player to shoot in the 50s and then win the tournament.
He never was in danger of missing the FedEx Cup playoffs for the first time in his career, but the victory gave the 37-year-old a huge jump on the points list. He climbed 50 spots to No. 30 after arriving in 80th — which would have been his lowest regular-season finish.
“To be perfectly frank, I didn’t have any chance at all” to win the FedEx Cup before this week, the 2012 playoff champion said. “After this week, I feel like I have a chance.”
Three former Baylor School golfers were in the field, with Harris English (68) tying for 11th at 14 under, Keith Mitchell (71) sharing 41st at 9 under and Stephan Jaeger (71) in a three-way split at 3 under at the bottom of the leaderboard.
For a while Sunday, it seemed as if determining a winner might come down to a playoff between Pan and Snedeker, who were even at 20 under entering Pan’s final hole.
The 26-year-old from Taiwan ran into big trouble, though. Pan shanked his tee shot out of bounds off a cart path down the right side of the fairway and needed four shots, including the penalty stroke, to reach the green on the par 4.
Pan said he heard “a couple noises in my head which caused me to hit a bad shot.
“It’s my fault. I can learn something from it,” he said. “I only played one bad hole, which is fine. You know, I’ve still got a lot of golf left.”
With the victory seemingly inevitable at that point, Snedeker sank a 20-foot birdie putt on the 18th to end it, making him the 10th player to win in Greensboro multiple times. His victory here in 2007 — when the tournament was staged at Forest Oaks Country Club — was the first of his career, and this time he finished one stroke shy of Henrik Stenson’s year-old tournament record.
“Wanting so desperately to win this tournament, it was just a lot of emotion this week,” he said.
On Saturday, severe weather led
organizers to suspend the third round with 30 players still on the course and bring everybody back Sunday morning. Snedeker wrapped up that round with a one-stroke lead at 16 under before heading back onto the course. Since the tournament moved here in 2008, every third-round leader who was that far under par has gone on to win.
The other subplot at Sedgefield was the last-minute push for the playoffs, which begin Thursday at The Northern Trust at Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, New Jersey, with the top 125 players qualifying. With every player who was between Nos. 122-127 missing the cut, there figured to be plenty of movement near the bubble.
Sergio Garcia will miss the playoffs for the first time in his career after winding up 131st on the points list.
Big title for Norway
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Viktor Hovland became the first Norwegian to win the U.S. Amateur, beating UCLA sophomore Devon Bling 6 and 5 to cap a dominant week at Pebble Beach Golf Links.
Hovland took control of the match by winning four straight holes midway through the morning round of the 36-hole final and managed to scramble back after his rare mistakes to give him the Havemeyer Trophy.
Hovland trailed after only one hole in six rounds of match play. He was in control throughout with his coach at Oklahoma State, Alan Bratton, serving as his caddie.
Norway has little history of success in men’s golf, with no one from the country ever winning a PGA Tour event. The most prominent Norwegian player is Suzann Pettersen, who has won two majors among her 15 wins on the LPGA Tour.
Park rallies by Salas
INDIANAPOLIS — Sung Hyun Park erased a two-shot deficit over the final four holes and birdied the first hole of a playoff with Lizette Salas to win the Indy Women in Tech Championship.
The two-time major champion from South Korea will return to the No. 1 ranking in the world thanks to her third LPGA Tour victory of the season and the fifth of her career.
Park closed with a 4-under 68 to match Salas at 23-under 265 at Brickyard Crossing Golf Club.
Salas appeared to be in control until hitting tee shots into the rough on the final two holes. She bogeyed No. 17 to fall into a tie with Park and missed a short birdie putt on No. 18 to close with a 70. In the playoff, the American slid a longer birdie putt just left of the hole. Park then rolled her 10-foot birdie putt right into the center of the cup. South Korea’s Amy Yang (69) was another shot back and alone in third.
Clutch putt wins it
ENDICOTT, N.Y. — Bart Bryant made a 25-foot birdie putt on the final hole to win the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open for the second time in six years.
With Michael Bradley facing a seven-foot birdie putt that he would make, the 55-year-old Bryant rolled in the leftto-right breaking putt for a 7-under 65 and a one-stroke victory in the PGA Tour Champions event. Bryant — who made six birdies in a nine-hole stretch from the third to the 11th and had six straight pars before the winning birdie putt on the par-4 18th — finished at 16-under 200 overall.
Bradley, the second-round leader, bogeyed the par-4 15th as he closed with a 68 at En-Joie Golf Club.
Marco Dawson (68) and Tom Gillis (67) tied for third at 13 under, a stroke ahead of Mark Calcavecchia (67), Paul Goydos (65) and Kenny Perry (67).
Victory at long last
MOLNDAL, Sweden — England’s Paul Waring captured his first European Tour title on his 200th attempt by beating Thomas Aiken in a playoff to win the Nordea Masters.
They were tied going into the final round at Hills Golf Club, and each closed with a 2-under 68 to finish at 14-under 266. On the par-5 18th in the playoff, Aiken hit his tee shot into the water and Waring won with a par.
Maximilian Kieffer (65) was another stroke back in third and Thorbjorn Olesen (67) fourth at 12 under.
Olesen earned enough World Golf Ranking points to move past Ian Poulter and into the eighth and final qualifying spot for the Ryder Cup with two weeks to go. However, Poulter and Paul Casey will have access to stronger ranking points via the FedEx Cup playoffs.