Reed delivers clutch putts to win Fedex Cup opener
Patrick Reed picked a good time to end 16 months without a victory.
Reed fell behind early, was still two shots behind on the back nine at Liberty National and then rolled in three straight putts — one for par, two for birdies — that allowed him to overtake Jon Rahm and hold off Abraham Ancer to win The Northern Trust in Jersey City, N.J.
Reed closed with a 2-under 69 after a breezy afternoon in which a half-dozen players were in the mix on the back nine.
“It’s been a little too long,” said Reed, whose last victory was the 2018 Masters. “What better place to do it than here. It’s definitely a good time to get a ‘W.’”
Reed had such mediocre results by his standards that he began the Fedex Cup playoffs at No. 50 and was only assured of two events. Points count four times as much in the playoffs, so the victory vaulted him to No. 2 in the Fedex Cup.
His place at the Tour Championship is secure. His odds of Patrick Reed hits out of a bunker on the fourth hole in the final round of The Northern Trust at Liberty National Golf Course on Sunday in Jersey City, N.J. the $15 million prize increased greatly.
Former Upper Arlington and Ohio State golfer Bo Hoag won the Korn Ferry Tour’s Portland Open to earn a PGA Tour card as a top-25 finisher in the regular-season standings.
Hoag, 31, birdied the final two holes for a 6-under 65 and a two-stroke victory. He jumped from 31st to seventh in the standings, earning $144,000 in the regular-season finale.
Mi Jung Hur won her third LPGA Tour title with a brilliant final round at the Ladies Scottish Open in North Berwick, Scotland on Sunday.
The South Korean
carded a closing 5-under 66 in wet conditions at The Renaissance Club to finish 20-under 264, four shots ahead of compatriot Jeongeun Lee6 (70) and Thailand’s Moriya Jutanugarn (71).
After playing the first eight holes in 1-over par, Hur had four straight birdies from the ninth and also birdied Nos. 16 and
18 in a back nine of 31 to secure her first win since 2014.