Moore surprises to win Valspar Championship
Second-year Tour pro earns first career win
PALM HARBOR, Fla. — Taylor Moore delivered the clutch shots to move into contention, closed with a 4-under 67 and won the Valspar Championship on Sunday when he avoided the mistakes that cost Jordan Spieth and Adam Schenk.
In only his second year on the PGA Tour, the 29-year-old who grew up outside Oklahoma City is now headed to the Masters.
He was on the practice range preparing for a playoff and missed a wild finish on the Copperhead course at Innisbrook.
Spieth was tied for the lead when he sent his tee shot into the water on the 16th and managed to stay in the game by getting up-and-down from 163 yards to salvage bogey. On the par-3 17th, which yielded only two birdies all day, Spieth hit 4-iron to 6 feet — only to miss the birdie putt.
The real heartbreak belonged to Schenk, whose wife flew down to Florida for the final round a month before she is due with their first child. Schenk holed a 70-foot birdie putt on the 12th hole. He made tough par saves on the 16th and 17th holes to stay tied.
On the 18th, however, he pulled his tee shot to the left. Schenk’s ball rolled through the gallery and stopped next to a pine tree.
His only shot was hitting an inverted gap wedge left-handed, and it was a dandy, shooting across the fairway into the rough. His third shot rolled onto the fringe 40 feet away. The par putt to force a playoff hit the hole, but had too much pace and hopped out. He closed with a 70.
Tommy Fleetwood (70) also had a share of the lead on the back nine. His round came undone on the par-5 14th hole when he went for the green in two. He pulled it left and caught a brutal lie in the downslope of the sand. He could only advance that in the big bunker, blasted out to about 15 feet and missed the par putt. He never caught up again.
No one was paying all that much attention to Moore until the 29-year-old who played at Arkansas started hitting one quality shot after another. He stuffed his approach to 2 feet on No. 12 for a birdie.
He effectively won the tournament with one great swing and one great putt. On the par-3 15th, he took aim at the back right pin to 6 feet and made birdie to get within one shot of the lead. And then he holed a 25-foot birdie on No. 16 to join Schenk in the lead.
The victory for Moore was worth $1,458,000.
PGA TOUR CHAMPIONS: In Newport Beach, Calif., Ernie Els shot a 6-under 65 to win the Hoag Classic and deny Bernhard Langer a chance at setting the career victory mark on the PGA Tour Champions.
Els started the final round five shots behind Langer when the big South African rolled in three straight birdie putts to get in the mix, and he closed it out with a 65-yard bunker shot to 12 feet and a birdie on the 18th hole.
Langer has 45 career wins on the PGA Tour Champions, tied for the most with Hale Irwin. The 65-year-old German began the final round with a one-shot lead but finished with a 2-over 73 and tied for seventh.
LIV: In Marana, Ariz., Danny Lee birdied his final two holes for a 2-under 69 and then won LIV Golf Tucson on the second hole of a four-man playoff on Sunday by making a 25-foot birdie putt from off the 18th green for his first win in nearly eight years.
Lee finished at 9-under 275 and got into the playoff with Carlos Ortiz (65), Brendan Steele (70) and Louis Oosthuizen (70).