Smith, Blixt win Zurich Classic in playoff

AVONDALE, La. — Cameron Smith stood on the edge of the 18th green, wiping away tears at a ceremony complete with alligator skin championship belts and a silver chalice.

The Australian, the youngest and least accomplished player left on the course, had been painstakingly close to his first PGA Tour victory — from the final hole of regulation at the PGA Zurich Classic on Sunday night through the fourth playoff hole Monday.

He kept his emotions in check long enough to stick a 58-yard lob wedge within 3 ½ feet of the pin on the fourth playoff hole — the par-5 18th — and sink his birdie putt.

The sequence lifted Smith, 23, and teammate Jonas Blixt, 33, of Sweden to the first championship under the Zurich Classic’s new team format. And it finally vanquished the feisty team of South Carolina residents Kevin Kisner and Scott Brown.

Kisner and Brown had rallied with a final round of 12-under par 60 on Sunday, capped by a nearly 95-foot chip-in for eagle by Kisner as darkness fell Sunday night at TPC Louisiana.

The Zurich Classic was the first team event on the PGA Tour since the Walt Disney World National Team Championship in 1981.

The tournament began with 80 teams and players choosing teammates. Many said they chose friends on the Tour rather than research whose game best complemented their own. The new format attracted half of the top 30-ranked players.

Victory in the new format also meant invitations to The Players Championship and SBS Tournament of Champions. It did not, however, provide a Masters invitation or count toward world rankings.

Blixt and Smith never bogeyed any of the 76 holes on the par72 course carved from cypress swamp west of New Orleans. They led by a stroke after two rounds and by four after three. They had fallen behind by two strokes, with Kisner and Brown birdieing 10 of their first 11 holes Sunday. But they rallied with birdies on Nos. 12, 15 and 16 to regain a one-stroke lead heading into the final hole of regulation, which they wound up having to birdie to force the playoff after Kisner’s clutch chip.

Both teams finished four rounds at 27 under par.

Kisner and Brown took home nearly $412,000 each. They also had the lowest one-round score in team play with their 60, two strokes better than the current course record in traditional stroke play.

Kisner missed a 9 ½-foot birdie putt on the second playoff hole — also 18 — that could have won it.