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The Gamers Championship delivered the PGA Tour’s greatest end of the yr Sunday.
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The early-week vibes from Ponte Vedra weren’t nice. The PGA Tour season wasn’t precisely off to a blistering begin, and its commissioner was playing defense. The Tour wanted a particular Sunday on the Players Championship.
It could have simply gotten it.
Battered and bruised already by much more gamers, together with World No. 3 and the defending Masters Champion Jon Rahm, packing their luggage for LIV Golf, and challenged by questions surrounding its Signature Occasions, the Tour’s 2024 received off to a cool begin.
The Tour’s greatest remaining gamers? They weren’t winning. Wyndham Clark was the one participant ranked within the High 50 of the Official World Golf Rating to win one of many first 9 occasions of the season. In the meantime, gamers have been stating flaws within the Tour’s new designated occasion mannequin.
When the Tour performed host to its flagship occasion at TPC Sawgrass this week, gamers, followers and the media alike had extra questions than Commissioner Jay Monahan was prepared to reply.
How have been the negotiations with the Saudi PIF for an funding that was alleged to occur three months in the past? Will LIV gamers be let again on the PGA Tour? Have board members referred to as on you to resign?
Participant trust in their embattled leader was clearly eroding.
Then the event started and extra controversy ensued. Rory McIlroy, the face of the Tour and its most recognizable participant, was on the middle of a guidelines kerfuffle that dominated headlines for 3 days.
The sport’s high participant, Scottie Scheffler, was in competition by 36 holes, however coping with a neck harm that threatened to take him out of the occasion.
Tour Confidential: Scheffler’s epic Players comeback, ‘tricky’ drops, Jay Monahan speaks
However then got here Sunday, and…
Salvation! With Scheffler and among the Tour’s brightest stars delivering a end for the ages.
From the start, it was destined to be a star-studded ultimate spherical with World No. 6 Xander Schauffele main reigning U.S. Open winner Clark by a stroke. One other 2023 main winner, Brian Harman, was a shot additional again in third, and the 2022 U.S. Open winner, Matt Fitzpatrick was in a tie for fourth.
A distant 5 again was Scheffler, final week’s winner, who was nonetheless coping with a neck harm, sporting two strips of kinesiology tape below his shirt.
The World No. 1 began his ultimate spherical slowly, parring the primary three holes, falling six again of Schauffele. Then he discovered a spark when he spun his method from the left and into the outlet for an eagle. He then made 5 extra birdies to surge right into a share of the lead, after which one again of Schauffele by the sixteenth gap.
Scheffler received up and down from one of many small greenside pot bunkers for birdie to regain a share of the lead with Schauffele, however that set of a series of occasions resulting in golf’s greatest end of the yr.
At that very same second, Schauffele and Clark had each missed the 14th inexperienced, Clark within the left bunker and Schauffele within the heavy tough and mounding proper. Each of them barely received their thirds on the inexperienced and whereas they each gave their par efforts a scare, neither fell. Schauffele’s bogey gave Scheffler the outright lead at 20 below and Clark drifted three again.
Issues didn’t get any higher for Schauffele on 15 as he blocked his drive proper, into the golf green bunker. He managed to offer himself a nine-footer for par, however he didn’t convert it and fell two again.
That left Harman as Scheffler’s closest pursuer at 19 below after a birdie on 15.
In the meantime, Scheffler was on the iconic island inexperienced par-3 seventeenth. The standard final-round pin location is all the way in which on the correct, simply previous the lone bunker in entrance of the inexperienced.
Scheffler didn’t even problem it, taking part in towards the center of the inexperienced, however leaving himself 48 toes away from the outlet. However the defending champion deftly navigated the slope of the island inexperienced and curled his birdie strive inside a foot for the routine 3.
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Harman was two teams again on 16, maybe TPC Sawgrass’ final true birdie alternative. The left-hander merely wanted to search out the golf green on the 534-yard par-5, however he pushed the tee shot and located the pine straw left of the golf green. From there he selected to not problem the water proper of the inexperienced and as a substitute laid properly again to 156 yards for his third. Just one participant had an extended third shot on 16 Sunday then Harman.
The conservative technique didn’t repay. Harman’s third didn’t problem the again left pin and left him 50 toes for birdie. He two-putted for a disappointing par.
Schauffele and Clark had extra success, each discovering the golf green after which the inexperienced on the par-5 in two which means Schauffele had an opportunity to tie and Clark an opportunity to get one again. Only one participant had a shorter eagle try all day then Clark’s 15-footer, however neither transformed. Schauffele was again at 19 below with Clark at 18 below as they headed for 17.
The ultimate group had one selection: tackle the water hit a wedge simply left of the flag and use the slop to deliver their balls again to the pin. The appropriate-hole location is historically the toughest on 17 and this yr solely three gamers made birdie all day earlier than the ultimate group.
Clark was first to play, recollections contemporary of the day prior when he laid the sod over his method and watched his ball dive into the pond 20 yards short of the inexperienced.
Sunday’s was a lot better. He performed the shot completely and watched because it rolled right down to inside 5 toes.
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Schauffele matched, along with his method additionally taking the slope and stopping simply inside seven toes. His putt was to tie. Clark’s was to get inside a stroke.
However Schauffele pulled the putt and it by no means touched the cup.
“It’s such a small stroke with some wind, and I felt like I began it a bit of bit left,” he stated afterward. “I felt like I had a very good learn. I instructed Austin I felt it began a bit of bit left of my line. Only a poor execution.”
Not a very good visible for Clark to see, however he poured within the birdie putt anyway. Clark, Schauffele and Harman have been all tied, one shot again of Scheffler, needing birdie on 18 to power a playoff.
Harman was first to strive, lacking his birdie putt from the entrance fringe of the inexperienced.
Then the ultimate group got here down the 18th, Schauffele from proper pine straw, and Clark from the golf green.
Schauffele might solely muster a shot that landed quick and launched 60 toes away from the outlet. He did properly to get his putt inside three toes, however that left Clark because the final man standing between Scheffler and the trophy.
His putt was similar to Harman’s a gaggle earlier, above the outlet from the entrance proper a part of the inexperienced. He gave it a roll. It was monitoring. It caught the lip. It spun out.
“I don’t understand how that putt doesn’t go in,” Clark stated. “It was form of proper middle with like a foot to go, and I knew it was going to maintain breaking, but it surely had velocity and I believed it was going to good inside left, and even when it form of lipped, I believed it might lip in. I’m fairly gutted it didn’t go in.”
Scheffler had gained, and whereas there was no thrilling make on the 72nd gap, a vicious lip-out to power a playoff proved simply as dramatic.
The Tour’s most talented star had gained the occasion it desperately wanted him to.
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