First he was Mr. 59. Then, for a few moments, he was the guy who blew a four-stroke lead to Patrick Cantlay in the final round of the Valspar Championship. Finally, Adam Hadwin was a PGA Tour winner.
Hadwin shot 59 at the CareerBuilder Challenge earlier this season. He is one of just eight players in PGA Tour history to hit the magic number. That was what he was best known for coming into this week at Innisbrook Resort.
But the Canadian took a four-stroke lead into the final round with thrilling play over the first three days. He got to 14 under with rounds of 68-64-67. He looked to be a runaway winner.
That was until Cantlay re-kindled a little bit of the magic that made him a superstar at UCLA as an amateur. The oft-injured former No. 1 amateur in the world recently returned to the PGA Tour after the death of his caddie a few years ago.
Cantlay birdied four of his first five holes on the back nine on Sunday and sent a surge into the tournament. Still, Hadwin kept answering the bell.
Until the 16th hole anyway.
That was where Hadwin hit his tee shot on the tough 475-yard par 4 into the water. He went on to make double bogey, and all of a sudden the tournament was tied.
Hadwin hung in, did not hang his head and ended up winning by making par at each of the final two holes. Cantlay could not get up and down from the bunker on No. 18 and fell one stroke short at 13 under. Hadwin won it with a final round, even-par 71.
It was a tremendous battle between two guys with exceptional stories.
“I don’t know what to say right now,” Hadwin told Golf Channel. “I fully expected Patrick to make that putt. I said yesterday I just wanted a chance to win coming up the last.”
He got it, and he took advantage of it. For Cantlay, the loss stings, but this is his first top-three and just his second top-10 finish as a professional.
“I played well,” said Cantlay. “I did a lot of good things. Didn’t finish it off very strong. But overall, I played well. My game’s good. I love being in the moment. I love doing it and there’s no place I would rather be.”
Grade (for both): A+
Henrik Stenson (T7): Stenson had a solid outing, which is representative of his last six months on the PGA Tour and European Tour. Stenson only had one finish outside the top 10 since the 2016 Open Championship (excluding withdrawals) on both tours coming into this week. That remains intact.
Stenson could not get any momentum going into Sunday after a slick 64 in Round 1. He shot even-par in his middle two rounds and found himself seven back of Hadwin heading into the final 18 holes. With the show Hadwin and Cantlay put on Sunday, that was an impossible ask for Stenson to make up the ground.
Still, Stenson had a terrific week. He shared a sweet hug with his daughter, gave Justin Rose a hard time and tried to scare his golf ball into the hole at one point. Grade: A
Justin Thomas (MC): Thomas didn’t crack par and couldn’t make it to the weekend. Thomas (and other young players like him) will be an intriguing case study in the area of missed cuts.
They were not built to make cuts. They (correctly) believe that anything that is not a win is a loss. You want the highest highs and if that means lower lows than players of the past, then so be it. Maybe the end result on the schedule for Thomas and Co. is going to look more like W-MC-W-MC-2nd-MC than it is T11-8-T9-23-T21.
In 10 starts so far this year, Thomas has three wins and three missed cuts so he’s fulfilling that idea, and if the point is simply to rack up wins (and it is), then his formula is a good one. Also, he goes as his putter goes (like so many of the best players). Grade: F
Tony Finau (5th): Finau remains a real threat to win at any time. He dropped a 64 on Sunday that included a 31 (!) on the back nine and led the field in strokes gained off the tee. His swing is a little bit unconventional, and half the time it feels like he’s getting ready to swing a baseball bat at a hanging slider, but he hits it like a boss.
It’s easy to envision him winning both soon and often. This was his third top 10 this calendar year to go along with two missed cuts. It is kind of the poor man’s version of Thomas’ season thus far. Grade: A