HILTON HEAD ISLAND, South Carolina – Believing he may need a shot at a playoff, Jordan Spieth rolled a 10-foot jumper into the 18th gap within the regulation. He made a good greater shot at Harbor City’s signature slot in a playoff to win the RBC Heritage.
Spieth’s 56-foot-high shot from a inexperienced bunker stopped 7 inches away and beat Patrick Cantlay with parallel strokes Sunday on the lighthouse pit to assert his thirteenth PGA Tour title – and his second in a row on Easter Sunday.
Generally, as Speth mentioned, there is a cycle the place you’re feeling such as you’ve performed properly, however not ok to win. “I truthfully felt like this was that week,” he mentioned with a smile. “I wanted loads of issues to stroll correctly.”
And he received all of them.
Spieth, at 13 after being 5-under 66, completed 4 units forward of Cantlay and waited for the stellar subject that had many probabilities to tie or transfer up entrance. However everybody besides Cantlay could not chase after Spieth, who evaded watching a lot of the motion as soon as he completed.
“Each single hit feels prefer it’s entering into,” mentioned Speth. “It was far more nerve-wracking than truly taking part in it.”
Speth was positive he would overtake FedEx Cup champion Cantelay, Open Championship winner Shane Lowry or third-round chief Harold Varner III. When the three lowered his common 5 to fifteen, the very best probability of a hen on his again was the 9, Spieth felt his probabilities improved.
When Spieth completed, he had a stroke behind Laurie. However Lowry’s chip in 3 14 raced throughout the inexperienced and into the water, making a double bogey. He completed a stroke after 69.
After Cantlay, who was tied for the lead after Chicken on the seventeenth, hit his method on the inexperienced in his closing regulatory gap, Spieth headed to loosen up, assured that he could be referred to as up once more after Cantlay took the profitable hit.
As a substitute, Cantlay slid to the precise to arrange the playoff.
Within the playoff match, Cantlay additionally hit the entrance bunker, his lie wanting like a fried egg. He jumped 35 ft previous the cup and missed the ball.
Cantlay was 179 yards out of the outlet within the playoff and used 9 irons as he did a short while earlier than in regulation. This shot got here beneath inexperienced and in a horrible scenario.
“Clearly, with it related like this, it is nearly unimaginable to approximate,” Cantlay mentioned.
Three hits behind Varner enter the spherical, Eagle spit each out of the 9 Bar-5 to get into the combination.
Spieth had received his final occasion, the Valero Texas Open, at Easter to finish a four-year drought with no win.
One subsequent Easter? Grasp’s Remaining Spherical.
“It is such a constructive suggestions,” mentioned Spieth, a three-time main champion, together with the Masters in 2015.
Cam Davis (63) additionally had a stroke together with Varner (70), JT Boston (64), Cameron Younger (66), Sepp Straka (68) and Matt Kochar (68).
Spieth has received from dugout earlier than. He beat Daniel Berger with a inexperienced bunker hit on his first further gap on the 2017 Vacationers Championship.
Along with Cantlay, others in addition to Cantlay, who missed 15 ft of birdie in Gap 72, had the chance to catch Spieth. Straka connected a spit at age 13 beneath a flying hen on the seventeenth, then set off on the final gap after his method discovered some tall, thorny grass in entrance of the inexperienced. Varner had hen probabilities on every of the final 4 holes, but he could not flip any of them.
Spieth set out with the First Eagles. Within the second gap, he hid from a inexperienced bunker. On the fifth gap, he hit the inexperienced in two and rolled in 24 ft because the honest erupted in cheers.
Spieth reached 13 beneath with a hen on the eighth earlier than falling again to 11 beneath with a bogey on the ninth and eleventh. He moved into hanging poses with a birdie on the thirteenth, then hit his method to the drama-filled lighthouse pit to 10 ft and made the birdie up 13 beneath.
He is come this week fretting about shedding the lower final week on the Augusta Nationwide. “I hated it,” he mentioned. “It was the worst feeling. It was the worst feeling I can keep in mind as a golfer.”
That turned out in Harbor City in entrance of a contented, all-sold crowd that Speth mentioned he was at a depth of 4 days throughout Wednesday’s professional tour.
“I used to be actually stunned by the quantity of assist everybody had this week, and I felt loads of it personally,” mentioned Speth. “These crowds had been nice as a result of they don’t seem to be that massive.”
Spieth has solely performed the event thrice since 2015 as a result of it falls after the all the time grueling Masters Week.
“What an excellent event to win,” mentioned Speth. “It is an excellent golf course.”
