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Cameron Smith claimed the biggest win of his career as a Players Championship that featured storm delays and near freezing temperatures concluded in warm sunshine at TPC Sawgrass on Monday.
He becomes the fifth Australian to win the PGA Tour’s flagship event and takes home $3.6m, the largest prize in golf.
Smith holed 10 birdies in a six-under-par 66 to win on 13 under, one ahead of India’s Anirban Lahiri in Florida.
England’s Paul Casey pushed Smith as he carded a 69 to end third on 11 under.
“I just played a really, really good round of golf in difficult conditions around Sawgrass. Shot 69 with one bogey and some breaks that didn’t go my way,” said 44-year-old Casey.
“You have to tip your cap at Cam, who played phenomenal golf. He won this tournament. There was no losing it, he flat out won it and you have to respect that.”
It was a terrific battle between the pair, with Smith, who lives in nearby Jacksonville and enjoyed the greater support, holing four consecutive birdie putts to race clear of the field and a fifth came at his sixth hole to get to 12 under.
But the momentum started to shift on the par-four seventh as Casey rolled in his first birdie putt to get within two as Smith bogeyed.
And the lead was eradicated on the par-five ninth, with Smith carding a third successive bogey, while Casey again birdied as both started the back nine on nine under.
Elsewhere, pressure was coming from American Keegan Bradley, who had four birdies from the ninth to get to 10 under, while Scotland’s Russell Knox, who also lives in Jacksonville, birdied three of his first four holes to get to nine under before fading with bogeys at the fifth and seventh.
Round-three leader Lahiri reached 10 under after seven holes but a double bogey on the par-three eighth looked ruinous for the Indian, ranked 322 in the world. However, he hit back with an eagle on the 11th to get right back in the hunt on 11 under.
Smith was on another birdie run though, holing four in succession from the 10th to get to 13 under and put daylight between himself and the field.
Casey was hanging in there, with birdies on the 11th and 12th to get to 11 under but his luck ran out on the par-five 16th. After a monstrous drive, his ball ended up in a divot, preventing him from going for the green in two, with the threat of water to the right of the green.
“It was the best tee shot I have hit all week on that hole,” said Casey. “Cameron had hit it into the trees and I thought the door was open. I wanted to go for the green but there were too many variables and too many risks.
“You need a little bit of luck sometimes, don’t you? That wasn’t very good luck, was it? Deep down I wanted to go for it out of that lie, but it felt too risky. It would have been brave, but maybe foolish to try to go for it.”
Casey had to settle for par, as did Smith and the world number 10 further extended his lead with a terrific birdie on the iconic par-three 17th after hitting his tee shot to four feet, although he admitted: “I’d be lying if I said I was aiming there. I was aiming 10 feet left of where it went.”
Lahiri, in the group behind, also birdied the 17th to move within two and he watched from the 18th fairway as Smith, who had inexplicably hit his second from the trees into the water, holed a short putt for a bogey.
That left Lahiri needing a birdie to force a play-off, but he was visibly annoyed with his approach, which came up short of the green and when his birdie chip pulled up a foot short of the hole, Smith could finally celebrate.
“This hasn’t sunk in yet,” said the 28-year-old. “I feel as though one of these big ones was the next step for me.
“I have knocked on the door a few times and I felt it was my time. I’m playing the best I’ve ever played, I hit lots of quality golf shots and did not back down.”
Stormy week with sunny ending
The 40th anniversary of the first Players Championship to be held at the iconic purpose-built Stadium Course will live long in the memory.
The first round alone took 54 hours to complete as five inches of rain deluged the course with thunderstorms forcing fans to be evacuated from the course on Thursday and Friday.
And the strong winds that blew away the storms that had delayed Saturday’s start wreaked havoc, with 35mph gusts leading to high scoring for those unfortunate to be out there. Sunday’s play started in 2C temperatures, around 25C cooler than the practice days.
After the end of the second round, the top 10 players on the leaderboard had all gone out in the morning wave on Thursday.
England’s Lee Westwood, who was among the later starters and therefore playing in the worst conditions, echoed the thoughts of many others in his half of the draw when he posted on Twitter: “I haven’t seen this big a discrepancy between morning and afternoon waves in a good few years.”
He shot a one-over 73 in the opening round but an 80 in Saturday’s wind.
The weather delays pushed the tournament into a Monday finish for the first time since 2005 and the eighth overall. All the Monday finishes have occurred in March. The Players was held in May for 12 years until returning to its earlier date in 2019.
The rain briefly returned on Monday but the final round was largely played out in warm, sunny conditions as Smith picked up his fifth PGA Tour win, to move up to sixth in the world rankings and join Steve Elkington (1991, 1997), Greg Norman (1994), Adam Scott (2004) and Jason Day (2016) as Australian winners of this event.