Nick Taylor drains unbelievable 72nd gap chip to win Sony Open

One of many nice traits of sports activities is that they’re presided over by a commanding sense of destiny.

The competitors could also be intense and the chances could also be many, however by the point we have now reached the tip, we normally really feel as if we have now gotten the end result we deserved. In golf, all that’s left to study by the point Sunday morning rises is the trail from level A (opening tee pictures) to level B (the winner’s circle).

However there isn’t any individual within the golf world, and maybe no individual within the non secular world, who would have predicted Nick Taylor would win the Sony Open by the point he reached the 72nd fairway in Waialae. It wasn’t simply that Taylor was trailing by two pictures on the final gap, with the leaders nonetheless behind him. Not simply that he’d blown consecutive four-footers on the 69th and seventieth holes to fall into that place. Not simply that was seconds away from overcooking his method on the 72nd gap to the again bumper of the inexperienced, leaving a gnarly 60-footer down a ridge simply to get to a playoff. It was that Taylor himself didn’t suppose he had an opportunity.

“It was a tricky day,” he admitted later. “I used to be 1-over by 7 and not likely serious about profitable.”

However then the nice pendulum of destiny swung from behind the 72nd inexperienced in Waialae, and abruptly Taylor was watching his ball roll down the ridge on the excellent tempo and excellent line, monitoring nearer and nearer to the opening. After which, equally abruptly, it fell in, and Nick Taylor wasn’t two pictures off the lead anymore. He was the chief within the clubhouse, tied with Echavarria. And Spaun and Jaeger had been in bother behind him.

The sequence arrived instantly, and was seen greatest on NBC’s broadcast, which had successfully shifted its focus away from Taylor to maintain most consideration on the three golfers with one of the best probability of profitable the match. The beginning of Taylor’s chip hardly cleared over the tv display screen, after which it was within the backside of the opening and the NBC crew was expressing its solemn shock on the chance that Taylor would possibly now be headed for a playoff.

The 2 golfers made birdies every on the primary playoff gap. However then, after returning to the 18th gap for a second time, it appeared a conclusion was nearing. Taylor had undercooked his method this time, leaving 40 yards to the pin, whereas Echavarria had struck a towering hybrid to 40 ft.

However Taylor wouldn’t go away. He struck a downright excellent chip shot to three ft, swinging strain again within the path of Echavarria, who popped up his putt off the again fringe.

It was Echavarria’s flip once more, and this time, the birdie putt missed, leaving a 3-footer for Taylor to clinch the title. Taylor struck his putt straight into the underside of the opening. Event over. Victory.

As the burden of the second washed over him, so did the depth of his shock. For the third time within the final three years — the primary being his equally dramatic 72nd gap make at his nationwide Canadian Open, the second being in an equally thrilling playoff on the WM Phoenix Open — Taylor had plucked victory from the jaws of the unimaginable.

Taylor was a winner once more on the PGA Tour, and he’d solidified himself as one of many Tour’s nastiest finishers — although the level-headed Canuck would by no means admit as a lot.

“I really feel like I can rise to the event and it’s fairly enjoyable,” he stated Sunday with a smile.

Certainly he can. In ’23, the clutch gene remade the Canadian Open match emblem. In ’24, it turned him right into a Signature Occasion winner. And in ’25, it made him a winner even when he didn’t consider it attainable.

Was it destiny? Maybe. However it positive didn’t really feel that approach.