USA TODAY International Edition
Long time between PGA Tour wins
Chez Reavie wins Travelers 11 years after 1st win
CROMWELL, Conn. – A week after coming in second in the U.S. Open, Brooks Koepka’s tank was empty. He followed his opening-round 71 with a 66 Friday and made the cut at TPC River Highlands but was never in contention in the Travelers Championship.
He signed for a 71 Sunday more than an hour before the leaders teed off.
“I’m dead. I’m fried,” Koepka said Saturday. “My body is starting to ache, too. It’s a combo. It’s hard to focus.”
Chez Reavie played alongside Koepka at Pebble Beach in the last round of the U.S. Open and finished third, but he certainly did not suffer the same fatigue. The 160-pound, 5-9 resident of Scottsdale, Arizona, looked fresh as a daisy Saturday while shooting a backnine 28 that gave him a six-shot lead.
Good thing, because Reavie, who shot 69 Sunday, wound up needing every one of those shots to hold off Keegan Bradley and win.
It was clear scoring conditions were good. Abraham Ancer shot 63 early in the day, and Vaughn Taylor, Paul Casey and Russell Knox each posted 65s.
However, Reavie was still at even par through 15 holes Sunday as Bradley, who statistically is one of the worst putters on the PGA Tour, hit fantastic chip shots and poured in putt after putt on the firming TPC River Highlands greens. Over his first 15 holes, Bradley was 5 under and had trimmed Reavie’s lead to a single shot.
After missing several putts short, including a 10-foot birdie chance on the eighth hole and an 11-foot birdie chance at the 16th, Reavie finally got clear of Bradley on the 400-yard, par-4 17th.
Teeing off first, Bradley’s drive avoided the lake on the right side but landed in a fairway bunker on the left. Reavie split the fairway. Then from a flat lie and needing to hit the ball 157 yards over the water to reach the hole, Bradley hit the ball with the leading edge of his iron. It screamed over the water and shot through the green, finally stopping 75 feet behind the hole. “I hit a 9-iron and I skulled it,” Bradley said. “I just hit it thin. It’s an absolutely brutal shot.”
Reavie, calmly, hit his approach shot from 150 yards away to 14 feet to set up another birdie chance. He made it, and Bradley wound up with a double bogey.
It was as if someone had hit Reavie’s pressure-release valve. He took a deep breath walking to the 18th tee, split another fairway with his tee shot (he hit 11 of 14 fairways on Sunday) and then got up and down for par. A fist pump after he retrieved his ball from the bottom of the cup punctuated the win.
Reavie’s last PGA Tour win came in the 2008 RBC Canadian Open. Thankfully, his composure down the stretch helped to keep this dream from turning into a nightmare.
Bill Speros