His fate wasn’t decided until another putt of a similar length about an hour later also ended up with the same missed outcome.
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On Sunday, he took down Phil Mickelson with a 17-under 270.
The putt that defined it – and not one which Lefty will want to be reminded of…
So, with a family and after the boating accident, it’s understandable why after his victory, Taylor would say, “I’m so thankful, so lucky to be here”. And it just tells me I still need a little bit of work. “I can’t say my form is going to be bad forever”.
“I thought it was a left-edge putt”, said Mickelson, who closed with a 72.
What motivates him is a swing that has him confident over the ball again and a putting stroke that didn’t miss anything inside of 7 feet until the 72nd hole of the week. Coming out of the rough near the 15th green, Taylor hit a shot that seemed destined to bounce long.
But Mickelson’s defining moment from this tournament won’t be any of the birdies he made, or the drives he striped, or the cheers he received.
And Taylor wasn’t too far away, watching all of this happen. “I was prepared for a playoff”.
Taylor shot to the top of the leaderboard with a run of four consecutive birdies from hole Nos. I was missing a bunch of putts – short, long, mid, it didn’t matter. Things were just – it was just magical out there. “I can’t believe I’m actually sitting here right now”.
“I’ve worked so hard and just kept getting knocked down and knocked down”, said Taylor, who has not played a full season on the PGA Tour since 2012 while bouncing between it and the satellite Web.com tour over the past three seasons.
Taylor’s 65 here sealed several fates for him. He’s in the Masters and PGA Championship, and he gets to set his own schedule for the next two years. Because I know where I’m playing. “I mean, are you kidding?”
Taylor, 39, captured his third tour title, to go with back-to-back victories in the Reno-Tahoe Open in 2004 and 2005. He’s been the runner-up three times since on tour. “This is the course that probably gave me more trouble than the other two”.
In addition to struggles on the course, he endured a frightening boat accident while fishing on a river near his home in 2014 – one in which he feared he would drown.
“There are so many ups and downs in this career”, Leot Taylor said when she’d wiped the tears from under his sunglasses. “As disappointing as it was not to get the win, it was so much fun to get back into contention”. I made a few more mistakes in short game around the greens. “The best players don’t play good every week”.
“There’s so many good players nowadays”, he said. Maybe I should have enjoyed the ride. There were a lot of opportunities, easy up-and-downs that I didn’t capitalize on to keep the round going.
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4 and 5. While he regained the lead by the time he made the turn, Mickelson wasn’t under par at any point of his final round and seemed to spend the entire day in chase mode despite his starting position.
