Nick Taylor, playoff machine, emerges from another crowded leaderboard to win Sony Open in Hawaii
Nick Taylor walked off the seventh green on Sunday 1-over for the round and five shots back, his mind wandering anywhere but the possibility of winning the golf tournament.
When he missed back-to-back 4-foot birdie putts on Nos. 15 and 16, he thought it was over again. And as he stood on the 18th tee in regulation two shots back of the lead, he had an inkling of hope but not much more.
So as he sat down in the media center at the Sony Open in Hawaii a few hours later with a flower lei around his neck and the trophy to his right, he was still in shock.
“I’m a bit stunned it worked out this way,” Taylor said.
He should be.
By the numbers, Taylor had just a 0.4% chance of winning when he stepped onto the 18th tee box at Waialae Country Club. A 1/250 shot at the title, per Data Golf. But Taylor has a knack for these moments, and aided by some shaky golf around him, the Canadian hero delivered another thrilling performance.
Taylor chipped in for eagle from behind the 18th green to vault to 16-under and into a tie for the lead alongside Nico Echavarria. Meanwhile, the playoff that looked possible all day long between final-group members J.J. Spaun and Stephan Jaeger fell apart as they made late bogeys to drop out of contention.
After both made birdie on the opening playoff hole, Taylor outlasted Echavarria on the second playoff hole, hitting his pitch shot stiff with the pin for a comfy birdie, while Echavarria three-putted from 39 feet to lose. The win marks Taylor’s fifth career PGA TOUR title. He’s won in three consecutive seasons, all in playoffs. He won the 2023 RBC Canadian Open in a playoff over Tommy Fleetwood and last year’s WM Phoenix Open over Charley Hoffman.
“I just feel like I can rise to the occasion,” Taylor said.
It’s hard to be a consistent closer in pro golf. Most just hope to put themselves in contention as often as possible and hope the cards fall in their favor a few times. That’s the percentage play. There are so many variables and a fair bit of luck that affect the outcome of every tournament on the PGA TOUR. But when Taylor is in those situations, he’s shown an ability to close better than any player in recent memory, outside of Scottie Scheffler.
This week’s Sony Open in Hawaii marked the sixth time in Taylor’s career that he’s entered the final round inside the top five. He’s won four of those six events.
“I enjoy being in those moments,” Taylor said. “For whatever reason my mind gets clear in those situations of the shot I’m just trying to hit.”
Sunday’s performance was particularly impressive given how Taylor’s last several months have transpired. Since winning the WM Phoenix Open last February, Taylor had carded just one top-10 finish, which came at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, the two-man team event. Outside of that, he played little good golf. His feel with the putter evaded him and he wasn’t driving the ball well enough to make up for it. Feeling the pressure to play on the Presidents Cup International Team in his native Canada, Taylor pressed and his game went in the opposite direction. He didn’t receive one of Mike Weir’s captain’s picks and had to watch from home as one of the biggest golfing events ever held in Canada proceeded without him.
“I had more myself to blame,” Taylor said. “I felt like I put Mike in a tough situation.”
“It was a tough six, seven months,” Taylor added.
On top of that, Taylor finished outside the top 50 of the FedExCup, leaving his schedule in limbo, unsure how many Signature Events he might play. That’s of no concern anymore. With the victory, Taylor earned exemptions into the seven remaining Signature Events, as well as the Masters and PGA Championship. He jumped from 73rd to 29th in the Official World Golf Ranking. He’s now second in the FedExCup.
If Taylor is becoming the playoff king of the PGA TOUR, it’s only fitting he added the Sony Open in Hawaii to his trophy case. There must be something about the soothing sun, warm sand and crashing waves in Honolulu that lulls the annual field into a packed bunch.
A crowded leaderboard at Waialae is seemingly as guaranteed as beautiful weather in the Aloha State. The last six iterations of the Sony Open in Hawaii ended in a one-shot winning margin, with this year marking the fourth time that it ended in a playoff in that stretch. Fifteen players were within three shots of the lead entering Sunday’s windy final round at Waialae and no player held more than a one-shot lead coming down the back nine. That congestion at the top of the leaderboard was partly the fault of Spaun and Jaeger, who started hot out of the gates but combined for just one birdie on the back nine. That brought a host of chasers into the tournament, including Taylor.
After playing the first seven holes 1-over, Taylor rattled off four consecutive birdies from Nos. 8-11, three of which came on putts inside 10 feet. But the putter very nearly cost him the tournament. He missed a pair of near-gimme-length birdies on 15 and 16 that he thought ended his hopes.
“If you’d asked me in that moment, I thought my chances of winning were pretty low,” Taylor said.
But with the leaders stumbling ahead of him, Taylor’s closing eagle was enough to make the playoff with Echavarria, who made a clutch birdie putt right after Taylor’s hole-out to keep the tournament going.
On both the first and second playoff holes, Echavarria had the advantage after their second shots. He was just inches into the rough greenside on the first playoff hole and was putting from the fringe on the second. Taylor, meanwhile, was left with a pair of delicate downwind chips from below the green surface. Taylor sank a 10-foot birdie putt on the first hole to keep the playoff alive, before sticking his second pitch shot to 3 feet for the eventual tournament-winning putt.
“I did a really good job every day really of just hanging in there,” Taylor said. “Fortunate for me, really good things happened at the end.”
For Taylor they often do. It’s luck of his own making.
Source: [PGATour.com]
