43
Snedeker wins PGA’s Heritage
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo
Brandt Snedeker celebrates his putt on the first playoff hole to tie Luke Donald on the 18th green and force a second playoff during the The Heritage golf tournament in Hilton Head Island, S.C., Sunday, April 24, 2011. Snedeker finished the tournament 12-under.
Associated Press
HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C.
The toughest part of Brandt Snedeker’s day was spent in the clubhouse.
Snedeker posted an out-of-nowhere 7-under 64 on Sunday to come from six shots behind to finish in the lead at The Heritage nearly two hours before the round ended.
So Snedeker headed inside to watch, wait and see if he’d get back on the course. He eventually did, beating Luke Donald in a playoff Sunday and denying the Englishman a chance at No. 1.
“It was brutal,” Snedeker said of his time in front of the TV.
“I don’t want them to do bad, but I don’t want them to do great, either.”
In the end, Snedeker had the great finish, surviving against one of the world’s best in a gritty three-hole playoff for his second career PGA Tour win and first since the 2007 Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C., in his rookie season.
“To win this time, after all the hard work I put in the last three or four years, trying to improve, trying to get better,” he said. “I feel like my game is finally there.”
It certainly was at Harbour Town Golf Links.
Snedeker birdied seven of his first 12 holes to grab the lead just as the final pair of Donald and defending champion Jim Furyk teed off. Then Snedeker closed the final round with a 12-foot birdie putt on the signature, closing lighthouse hole at No. 18.
“It’s a storybook ending really, to be playing Luke in a playoff, to even have a chance to win was exciting to me,” he said.
Donald would’ve risen to the top spot in the world from No. 3 had he won. His countryman, Lee Westwood, moved from No. 2 to No. 1, replacing Martin Kaymer, after winning the Indonesian Masters earlier Sunday.
Donald saved par from difficult spots on the 71st and 72nd holes to force the playoff, then did it again on the second extra hole. But his luck ran out on Harbour Town Golf Links’ closing lighthouse hole, No. 18, when he got a partially buried lie in a front bunker.
Donald blasted out about 15 feet from the flag and his chip for par from just off the green hit the back edge of the cup and bounced away, giving Snedeker the victory.