Homa’s long chip in on 18th hole propels him past Willett and to successful title defense at Fortinet Championship
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Don Lex (LuckyDuckImages.com)
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
It’s been a while since the rain hit Napa. So that meant it would hit during the final round of the season-opening event of the PGA Tour season, the Fortinet Championship at Silverado Resort and Spa.
Over the week, conditions have been perfect for golf. But due to the weather tee times were moved up to complete the round.
“Patience, I think,” Homa explained. “You know, my coach just said just hang around, hang around, hang around. And I don’t know, last like three minutes are kind of a blur, but I played really good golf, I played solid. Danny and Justin both played great, but I just tried to play my game and just see where it got me. I don’t know, it was a wild finish.”
Before play had started, it was anyone’s tournament to win. Coming in, there was a jumbled-up leaderboard that saw five players within two strokes of the leader. The weather was bound to make things even more interesting.
The final hole of the tournament is where it was decided. 2021 Fortinet Championship winner Max Homa entered the last hole down a stroke to Danny Willett. Needing a birdie, Homa made a 32-feet, 10-inch chip for the birdie to tie with Willett.
Then, Willett missed a pair of putts from just a few feet away, both of them rimming off the side of the cup to three-putt 18.
“I hit it obviously far too hard and on the way back from where he was coming from, I thought it was straighter,” Willett said of his three-putt at the final hole. Again, just ended up tailing off and missing left. Yeah, disappointing way to finish, but you know, first out of the season, like I said, to be in contention, things are in a good place. Yeah, we’ll live to fight another day.”
Homa is the first repeat winner at Silverado since Brendan Steele did it in 2016 and 2017. He is now leading the FedExCup points with the 500 that he received. He is also now exempt on tour till 2025 and has received berths in The Master, PGA Championship, The Players Championship, and Sentry Tournament of Champions to go along with $1.4 Million of winnings.
Homa will carry this momentum with him to next week’s President’s Cup at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, North Carolina where he will represent the United States against the International team. Homa finished fifth in last season’s FedExCup standings.
“I’m just happy to be in form, to represent my country, play with those boys,” Homa said of representing his country next week. “They’re some good golfers, so I just wanted to come in in form. Honestly, I got a lot of people — I know this is Twitter, but I’ve had a lot of people tell me if the LIV guys wouldn’t have left, I wouldn’t have made the Presidents Cup team, so I had a little bit of a chip on my shoulder this week.”
The winner had a pretty good day when it came to giving himself chances to score. He was on the green in regulation 14 of 18 times while only hitting 8 of 14 fairways. He ended the day with a round of four-under round of 68. For the event, his aggregate score was 272.
On the other side of this is Danny Willett. He had control of the tournament most of the day before getting to the final hole. He took the lead by himself and seemed destined to win after getting a crucial birdie on the 14th hole, a par 4 where he hit his tee shot into the bark behind a tree before hitting his second shot 167 yards to the fringe of the green and then burying a 15-foot, 5-inch putt to take a one-shot lead. Willett had a final round score of 69.
“I’m not sure but I’m pretty sure it took a big bounce to get there and we had a pretty clean lie so at least we could hook it enough,” Willett said of his birdie on 14. “Almost couldn’t overhook it, so it’s one of them that you hit it every day with your pals, but in contention down the stretch was a bit different. But yeah, it was nice that it came off.”
Statistically, he was a tad better than Homa as well. He hit 17 of 18 greens in regulation and was 7 of 14 when it came to hitting the fairway. He also was perfect when it came to scrambling, only having to do it once.
Finishing third in the event was Taylor Montgomery. He went out at the 8:22 am tee time starting on the tenth tee. Montgomery shot an eight-under round of 68 that put him three shots out when the day was over.
“It was a round that, I don’t know, I didn’t feel like I played much different, but the score is obviously a lot different,” Montgomery said of his final round.
First and third-round leader Justin Lower went backward on Sunday by shooting a 73 to finish tied for fourth at 12-under.
The next event of the PGA Tour season will be the Sanderson Farms Championship in Jackson, Mississippi. It will take place two weeks from now, after the Presidents Cup.
