Snedeker wins without lifting a club Monday
SAN DIEGO — With his glove tucked in his back pocket and a putter in his hand, Brandt Snedeker walked off the green pumping his arms to celebrate a six-shot comeback to win the Farmers Insurance Open. That was the only part of his victory that looked normal.
He was on the practice green, not the 18th green.
Snedeker never hit a shot Monday.
Having delivered one of the great closing rounds on the PGA Tour on Sunday, all he could do was wait to see if it was good enough when the wind-blown tournament concluded before no spectators because of safety concerns for all the debris on the South Course at Torrey Pines.
The jangled nerves came from watching the forecast, and then the telecast. Snedeker finally went to the putting green and figured the crowd’s reaction would let him know if K.J. Choi had made birdie on the 18th to force a playoff. But then he realized there was no crowd.
“I can’t tell you how excited I am to be a champion here again, how unbelievable the last 48 hours have been,” said Snedeker, the first player in more than five years to make the cut on the number and win the tournament. “Everything worked out perfectly for me.”
It started with Snedeker.
In gusts that consistently topped 40 mph and peaked at over 50 mph, he played the final 17 holes Sunday without a bogey and closed with a 3-under 69, which was nearly nine shots better than the field. The average score (77.9) was the highest for the fourth round at a regular PGA Tour event since the tour began keeping such statistics in 1983.
Snedeker won at 6-under 282, the highest winning scores at Torrey Pines since Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979.
Shortly after he finished Sunday, play was stopped for the third and final time, and for good reason. The relentless wind toppled more than dozen trees across Torrey Pines, including a 60-foot eucalyptus that fell across the left edge of the 15th fairway.
More in Professional
