JACKSON, Miss. — Steven Fisk stated he wasn’t going to let something get in the best way of his first PGA Tour victory, and it took birdies on his final three holes Sunday to shut with an 8-under 64 to win the Sanderson Farms Championship.
Fisk and Garrick Higgo of South Africa lastly separated themselves over the closing holes on the Nation Membership of Jackson, and so they placed on fairly a present.
They had been tied when Fisk missed a 5-foot birdie putt on the reachable par-4 fifteenth. That turned out to be his final mistake.
He holed a 40-foot birdie putt on the sixteenth, and Higgo stated he heard somebody within the crowd say, “Take that, Higgo.” The South African answered with a 12-foot birdie of his personal — his fourth in a row on the again 9 — and playfully put his finger towards his lips with a smile.
Fisk hit wedge that danced across the cup and settled 3 toes away on the seventeenth. Higgo answered once more with a wedge to simply exterior 3 toes. It appeared as if it will go right down to the wire, besides that Higgo’s quick birdie putt caught the left lip.
Fisk pulled one forward with the birdie after which left little doubt with an method to 4 toes for one last birdie to win by two photographs over Higgo.
“I got here out immediately with an perspective that nothing was going to cease me,” Fisk stated throughout his Golf Channel interview on the 18th inexperienced. “I simply felt like I might be standing proper right here, proper now, earlier than the spherical began. I do know I am ok. I believed I might do it.”
And he did, ending at 24-under 264 for a win that carries huge advantages for the 28-year-old who performed his school golf at Georgia Southern and who performed on the 2019 Walker Cup group at Royal Liverpool.
Fisk was at No. 135 within the FedEx Cup standings, destined to return to the Korn Ferry Tour until he made up floor throughout the remaining two months of the Fall Sequence. Solely the highest 100 on the finish of the season hold full playing cards.
He now has a two-year exemption via 2027, after it took him 5 years to get to the tour.
“To have some job safety is fairly good,” Fisk stated. “It has been a protracted, arduous yr.”
Higgo seemed to have taken himself out of the combo with a bogey-bogey begin to the again 9. However then he ran off 4 straight birdies to catch Fisk, and was poised to make it 5 in a row till the quick miss on the seventeenth that value him.
“My mindset was to birdie each gap,” Higgo stated. “I nearly did that. Steven did the identical, so hats off to him.”
Danny Walker was tied for the lead early on the again 9, however he hit it into the water going for the inexperienced on the par-5 eleventh and made bogey, after which drove left right into a hazard on the seventeenth that led to a different bogey. He shot 69 and tied for third with Vince Whaley (67) and Ryder Cup participant Rasmus Hojgaard, who had a 66-65 weekend.
All three of these gamers got here away with a small comfort prize. Hojgaard was at No. 87 within the FedEx Cup, which is why he left the Ryder Cup celebration in New York for Mississippi. He went up 12 spots to No. 75.
The opposite two moved up 18 spots, Whaley to No. 84 and Walker to No. 86.
“I will not be fairly as stressed, hopefully, round that 100 quantity,” stated Walker, who had missed the reduce in eight straight tournaments coming into the Sanderson Farms Championship. “You possibly can simply go to play to win, actually. That will likely be loads nicer feeling.”
Hojgaard, Whaley and Walker had been amongst these headed for Japan for the Baycurrent Basic, the lone PGA Tour cease in Asia this yr.
