The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
RICHY WERENSKI COLLECTS 1ST PGA TOUR VICTORY
One-point victory is his first in 100th start on PGA Tour.
TRUCKEE, CALIF. — Richy Werenski holed a flop shot from the fairway on the par-4 16th for a five-point eagle and birdied the last hole for a one-point victory over Troy Merritt late Sunday in the Barracuda Championship.
The former Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket won for the first time on the PGA Tour, scoring 13 points in the final round on Tahoe Mountain Club’s Old Greenwood Course — the first-time venue after 21 years at Montreux Golf and Country Club. The 28-year-old won the event three years after losing to Chris Stroud on the second hole of a playoff.
“It’s huge,” said Werenski, making his 100th tour start. “I’ve been playing well for I feel like the last couple of months, but to get a win, I mean, that’s huge. I got a couple seconds and everything, so it just helps my confidence a lot. Now I know I’m good enough, and now we’re going to go make a good move for the FedExCup Playoffs.”
The fifth straight first-time winner in the tour’s lone modified Stableford scoring event, Werenski earned a spot in the PGA Championship this week in San Francisco. He and Merritt, also in the field at TPC Harding Park, secured spots in the U.S. Open in September at
Winged Foot.
Werenski finished with 39 points, with players getting eight points for albatross, five for eagle, two for birdie, zero for par, minusone for bogey and minusthree for double bogey or worse.
“I knew I needed a big day and then I started off with a bogey, which wasn’t good,” said Werenski, who tied for third last week in Minnesota. “Just wasn’t in a great rhythm early on in the round, but did a good job of just kind of snapping out of it, stopped trying on every shot, stick with my game plan and just try and make as many birdies as we could.”
His flop shot on 16 landed in the fringe and raced across the green and into the cup.
“When it went in, I wasn’t really thinking about where I was in relation to the leader until then,” Werenski said. “But when you start kind of doing the math, you’re like, ‘I’ve got three holes left, make a couple birdies and see what we can do.’ It was pretty cool.”
He made a 15-footer on the par-4 18th.
Merritt failed to convert the 54-hole lead into a victory for the second straight year. Last year at Montreux, Collin Morikawa rallied to beat Merritt.
Merritt left a 30-footer just short on 18. “Just couldn’t find that one birdie on the back side,” he said.
Matthias Schwab and Fabian Gomez tied for third with 37 points.