He needed a playoff to make it happen, but Jordan Spieth claimed the 2022 RBC Heritage Championship at Harbour Town Golf Links Sunday. The 28 year old defeated Patrick Cantlay with a brilliant bunker shot in a playoff to earn his second Easter Sunday win in as many years.
The win was a tremendous bounce back effort by Spieth following a missed cut at Augusta last weekend. His poor performance 7 days prior marked the first time he’d failed to make the cut at the Masters in his professional career.
Spieth carded a 66 Sunday to finish 13 under par for the tournament, his lowest round of the week. The Dallas native used a hot start to vault himself back into contention, with two eagles in his first five holes of play.
Cantlay had an opportunity from 15 feet out on 18 to make birdie and win the tournament outright. However he narrowly missed his putt, before cleaning up for par and sending the tournament to extra holes.
Spieth’s bunker shot on the first playoff hole allowed the 2013 PGA Tour rookie of the year to tap in for victory, which was fortuitous given how poorly he putted all week at Harbour Town.
“I won this golf tournament without a putter. This is one of the worst tournaments I’ve putted that I’ve been in contention in,” Spieth told reporters following his win. “I just tried to stay gritty with it, be really positive on the back nine today. After a couple missed shortish putts, I made one on 13, and that really settled me back down and just gave me the chance on 18.”
With the win, Spieth moves up to number 10 in the World Golf rankings and takes home a cool $1.44M for his efforts. Cantlay netted $872K for his second place finish, while Cam Davis, J.T. Poston, Matt Kuchar, Shane Lowry, Sepp Straka, Harold Varner III, and Cameron Young formed a 7 way tie for third at 12 under.
The victory is the 13th career PGA Tour victory for the former Texas Longhorn, but only his second since winning the 2017 British Open.
Photo: Peetlesnumber1. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.