Matt Fitzpatrick landed his approach shot on the third playoff hole about a foot away from the pin, and his tap-in birdie allowed him to defeat Jordan Spieth and win the RBC Heritage on Sunday evening in Hilton Head Island, S.C.
Playing the par-4 18th hole at Harbour Town Golf Links for the second time in the playoff, the Englishman lined up his second shot straight at the pin and watched it hop and roll straight at the cup, just shy of a near-hole-out. Spieth couldn’t get close on his approach and missed a long birdie putt that would have extended the playoff.
“I told (caddie Billy Foster) walking down here, it doesn’t get better than this,” Fitzpatrick said on the CBS broadcast.
It was Fitzpatrick’s first win since his major breakthrough at last year’s U.S. Open and just his second professional win on American soil overall.
Spieth had birdie putts to win the playoff on the first two holes — starting at No. 18, then at the par-3 17th — and both missed by the slimmest margins.
Spieth was attempting to defend his Heritage title from last year.
After firing an 8-under 63 on Saturday to take the 54-hole lead, Fitzpatrick closed with a 68 while playing with Spieth and Patrick Cantlay in the final threesome. Spieth held the outright lead during the back nine and finished with a 66, joining Fitzpatrick at 17-under 267. Cantlay also threatened before signing for a 68 and finishing one back.
Cantlay and Spieth were tied for the lead at 16 under when they stepped to the tee at the par-4 13th hole. That hole marked a two-shot swing in Spieth’s favor: While Cantlay missed the green and wound up two-putting for bogey, Spieth dialed in his approach to 3 1/2 feet of the cup for an easy birdie.
Both Spieth and Cantlay missed the green at the par-3 14th and faced a difficult chip onto a downhill-sloping green. While Spieth’s rolled to the edge of the green, Cantlay’s dribbled further, coming to rest on a wooden post that barely kept the ball from dropping into water below.
Cantlay managed to chip it from that “lie” onto the green and saved bogey, while Spieth also took bogey.
“I just needed to make sure I was totally committed to what I decided to do there,” Cantlay said. “I wasn’t decided until the end, but ultimately I thought that if I would have dropped it, it would have meant double bogey more than likely, and I wanted to at least give myself a chance to stay in the golf tournament and try and get it up-and-down, which I did.”
Cantlay birdied Nos. 15 and 18 to bounce back to 16 under.
Xander Schauffele (66 Sunday) finished fourth at 15 under. Sahith Theegala (65) and Hayden Buckley (67) tied for fifth at 14 under, and Brian Harman (67), South Korea’s Sungjae Im (67), Argentina’s Emiliano Grillo (68) and Australia’s Cam Davis (68) finished 13 under in a tie for seventh.
–Field Level Media