Cool Mitchell captures first PGA Tour victory
With two PGA Tour poster boys hovering nearby waiting for a playoff, Keith Mitchell coolly rolled in a 15-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole to make sure it didn’t happen.
The 27-year-old American overcame hard charges by threetime major champion Brooks Koepka and Rickie Fowler on Sunday to win the Honda Classic at PGA National in Florida.
The Tennessee-native birdied four of his final seven to shoot a 3-under 67 for a 9-under 271 and his first PGA Tour victory.
Mitchell began the day tied for second before dropping shots on the first two holes. It brought back bad memories for Mitchell, who has played on the PGA Tour, Web.com Tour and the PGA Tour Latinoamerica but never won.
“I’ve been close and I let my emotions take over,” Mitchell told NBC after the win. “And today I bogeyed the first two holes and I was like ‘I am not letting this happen again.’ ”
It wasn’t a great day for Canadians as Nick Taylor and Roger Sloan both a shot 2-over par 72 to finish even-par for the week and tied for 30th. Adam Svensson shot a 5-over 75 and finished at 3-over and tied for 59th.
Until Mitchell’s final putt dropped it looked like his week would end with him playing the part of David against two golfing Goliaths.
A playoff looked likely after Mitchell found the fairway bunker with his drive at the par-5 18th hole.
But extra golf was not to be for Koepka and Fowler. Mitchell receives 500 FedEx Cup points and US$1,224,000 for the win.
Vijay Singh was trying to break Sam Snead’s record for oldest winner on the PGA Tour, but the 56-year-old had to settle for 6-under sixth place after shooting even par on Sunday.
WHO’S RULING WHO?
There is a battle brewing. For weeks, players have been crapping on the USGA over the game’s rule changes. Dropping the ball from knee height and the penalty for having your caddie line you up — or appear to line you up — before a shot have come under the most fire.
Quite a few players have taken to Twitter, where snark replaces discourse, to register their disapproval. World No. 4 Justin Thomas tweeted “#growthegame @USGA” when on Saturday, Adam Schenk was retroactively handed a 2-stroke penalty after his caddie stood behind him while he was addressing the ball inside a bunker. Thomas followed that up by tweeting that he “hopes that the USGA starts communicating with the current players to better the game.”
Thomas’ comments must have irked the USGA brass because the governing body responded on Twitter saying, “Justin, we need to talk. You’ve cancelled every meeting we’ve planned with you, but we are reaching out again.”
On Sunday, Thomas did the calling out, refuting the accusation saying he has never cancelled any meetings with the governing body.
Sung Hyun Park birdied five of the first seven holes on Sunday, shooting an 8-under 64 to win the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore.
The 25-year-old No. 2 ranked player began the final round four shots back of top-ranked Ariya Jutanugarn, but pulled away on the back nine where she made four more birdies to finish the week at 15-under, good for a two-shot victory over Minjee Lee.
Brooke Henderson shot an even-par 72 on Sunday to finish tied for 15th.
The Canadian has finished in the Top 15 in all three starts this season.