Coming up on five years since winning the Masters, Charl Schwartzel was starting to wonder if he would ever win again on American soil.
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Reigning Masters and US Open champion Spieth, frustrated after opening with a 76, fired a bogey-free four-under par 67 Saturday to reach two-under 211, six shots off the pace of Haas, who also had a 67 on the Copperhead course at Innisbrook.
It took a clutch final round from Charl Schwartzel and a mini collapse from Bill Haas to drastically change the outcome of the Valspar Championship.
In doing so, he became the ninth worldwide victor of the Valspar Championship. Schwartzel still put together the round of the day, a four-under par 67 that helped him erase the five-shot deficit with which he began the day. He answered a bogey at the par-three 13th with a chip-in birdie at the par-three 15th to grab his seventh career 54-hole lead, his first since winning past year at Palm Desert in California.
Schwartzel got up and down from a greenside trap for another gain at 14, and he holed from just inside 25 feet at the 17th before narrowly missing out on back-to-back birdies when his 40-footer on the final green grazed the edge of the cup. “And I think the way today played out, with it being really hard, you’re grinding just to make pars and keep the ball in play”.
What followed were extraordinary shots, and a playoff victory over Bill Haas.
Haas, who never trailed over the final 27 holes of regulation, hit his tee shot into the trees in the playoff, came up short into a bunker and blasted long out of the soft sand to 20 feet.
“It was tough”, Schwartzel said. Spieth finished tied for 18th with Justin Leonard, Justin Thomas and Brett Stegmaier while Stenson tied for 11th with Retief Goosen, Matt Kuchar, Daniel Berger, Jason Gore, Charley Hoffman and George McNeill.
While Spieth faltered on Sunday, he watched as fellow 22-year-old Lee McCoy, the eighth-ranked amateur in the world who plays at Georgia, posted an impressive 2-under 69 in the final round.
“Thinking about that bunker shot, I won’t get to sleep tonight”, Haas said.
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Charles Howell III and Graham DeLaet rounded out the top five at three under having shot one over and four over respectively on the final day. PGA Tour rookie Patton Kizzire closed with a 72 and tied for 33rd, enough to move past Poulter.
