Horses for Courses: WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational

Yuka Saso took advantage of a late collapse from 54-hole leader Lexi Thompson, beating Nasa Hataoka in a playoff to win the U.S. Women’s Open.

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ORLANDO, Fla. — The long ball helped Bryson DeChambeau outlast Lee Westwood on Sunday to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, only the key shots were as much with his putter as his driver. RELATED: Leaderboard | Winner’s Bag: Bryson DeChambeau DeChambeau holed a 40-foot birdie putt on the front nine and a 50-foot par putt early on the back nine. He closed it out with a nervy 5-foot par putt for a 1-under 71 and a one-shot victory over the 47-year-old Westwood. It matched the low score of the day, one of only three rounds under par in the toughest final round at Bay Hill in 41 years. DeChambeau and Westwood were never separated by more than one shot over the final 15 holes, a fascinating duel of generations that came down to the last shot. For the second straight day, DeChambeau revved up thousands of fans on the par-5 sixth hole by smashing driver over the lake and leaving himself 88 yards away on the 565-yard sixth hole. Westwood was 168 yards behind him, and raised both arms to jokingly mimic DeChambeau’s reaction from the day before. They both made birdie. DeChambeau appeared to be in trouble on the 11th when he narrowly missed going in the water off the tee, caught a plugged lie in the front bunker and gouged it out to 50 feet. He made that for par to stay ahead by one. Westwood tied him with a 30-foot birdie putt on the par-5 12th, only to give it back with a three-putt on the 14th. The tournament turned on the par-5 16th, where it was Westwood who had the advantage. DeChambeau’s drive went up against the lip of a bunker and he had to lay up short of the water. Westwood had 158 yards and hit a poor short iron that came up short of the green. He chipped nicely, except that it rolled out 6 feet by the hole on the lightning-quick greens and he missed the birdie for a chance to tie. DeChambeau was one ahead going to the 18th when he hit his most important drive of the day — in the fairway. Westwood’s tee shot settled in a divot, and he did well to get it on the green and two-putt from 65 feet. DeChambeau’s birdie putt slid by some 5 feet and he shook his arms in celebration when the par putt dropped. Westwood closed with a 73, not a bad score considering the average of 75.49 was the highest for a final round since 1980. Corey Conners stayed in the mix until the very end. The Canadian holed a 15-foot eagle putt on the 16th to get within one shot, only to find a bunker on the par-3 17th and miss a 6-foot par putt. With a bogey on the final hole, he shot 74 to finish alone in third. Jordan Spieth was part of a four-man race on the front nine and briefly tied for the lead with a birdie on the par-5 sixth. That turned out to be his last birdie of the day. He took bogey on three of his last four holes for a 75, dropping him into a three-way tie for fourth with Andrew Putnam (71) and Ricky Werenski (73). For Spieth, it was his third top-five finish in his last four events. DeChambeau said he received a text Sunday morning from Tiger Woods, who is recovering from serious leg injuries from his car crash in Los Angeles. He said Woods, an eight-time Bay Hill winner, told him to “keep fighting.” He also considered the words from Arnold Palmer to “play boldly.” He needed all of that with the fight Westwood gave him, and the test Bay Hill provided. “It’s been quite a battle this whole entire time,” DeChambeau said. DeChambeau rose to No. 1 in the FedExCup rankings with his ninth PGA TOUR victory, and he became the first player this season with multiple victories, to go along with his U.S. Open title in September. It matched the longest it took for a multiple winner on the PGA TOUR since 1969. Nick Price won his second title in the 21st week of the season in 1994. Rory McIlroy, who started four shots out of the lead, was never in the mix. He came undone on the par-5 sixth, where he hit two tee shots into the water and then hit the fairway, green and made the putt to salvage double bogey. He shot 76.

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In the spirit of the Valero Texas Open celebrating its 100th anniversary, here’s a ranking of the top 10 Valero Texas Opens in tournament history. 1940 Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan drove from Phoenix to San Antonio in a two-car caravan — Nelson in a gleaming new Studebaker, Hogan in his old maroon Buick with many miles on the odometer — for the first Valero Texas Open of the 1940s. The two friends from the caddie yards of Fort Worth played thrilling golf that week at Brackenridge Park, which teemed with spectators trailing the marquee pairing before marquee pairings were a thing. Nelson birdied the 72nd hole to tie Hogan, who finished 66-66 on the weekend. Thousands followed the playoff between the two. Nelson beat Hogan by a shot to secure his 11th PGA Tour title. Hogan, who had won only once at the time, would finish second in the next two Texas Opens, in 1941 and ’42. 1981 Reigning Open Championship winner Bill Rogers, born and raised in Texas, crafted a final-round 63 that autumn at Oak Hills Country Club, forcing a sudden-death playoff with fellow Texan and longtime friend Ben Crenshaw, who had shot 64. Rogers birdied the first hole to win for the fourth time that season, his best on the PGA TOUR. “I’m excited about winning,” Rogers said collegially, “but there’s a little something taken away when I have to beat one of my best friends to do it.” 2021 The Valero Texas Open returned with tremendous fanfare after the global pandemic cancelled the 2020 tournament — and so did Jordan Spieth. The 27-year-old Texan, the winner of three major championships and eight other PGA TOUR titles, had gone a mystifying 83 starts since his last victory at the 2017 Open Championship. He ended that streak on a bright Sunday at TPC San Antonio. Spieth, who had been working that week to return to the swing of his youth, shot a 6-under 66 on Sunday at TPC San Antonio to win by two. “It’s been a road with a lot of tough days,” he said. That road had ended, and this was not one of those days. Spieth, who hasn’t won since, returns this week to defend. 1923 The great Walter Hagen, who became in 1922 the first American to win the Open Championship, shot a course-record 65 that January in the third round at Brackenridge Park. He and Bill Mehlhorn finished the tournament at 9 under par before a record gathering of 6,000 who came to watch the stylish club pro from Michigan. Hagen won the ensuing playoff by a shot. His victory vaulted the Texas Open into the consciousness of the American sporting public. 1962 Arnold Palmer struck one of the most famous — and most-watched — shots in the history of the Valero Texas Open at the 72nd hole at Oak Hills Country Club. His soaring 7-iron stopped a foot from the hole, giving him a birdie and his then-record third consecutive VTO title. More than 15,000 spectators witnessed the charge from Palmer, who beat four other players by a stroke, one of Palmer’s eight TOUR titles that year. 1955 A burly former Duke University football player name Mike Souchak amassed 27 birdies over four days at Brackenridge Park, which included a first-round, 11-under 60. He shot 257 for the week, a scoring record that stood for 46 years, and wore deerskin gloves between shots through a frigid final round when temperatures never rose above freezing in San Antonio. His 60 shared the TOUR single-round record until 1977, when Al Geiberger shot his celebrated 59 in Memphis. 1950 In a reflection of the growing popularity of the Valero Texas Open, more than 300 contestants entered the tournament, played that year at both Fort Sam Houston Golf Course and Brackenridge Park. Sam Snead won his second VTO over Jimmy Demaret with a final-round 63 in rain and, for a moment, pounding hail. The Slammer “came roaring down the muddy stretch with birdies flying off his warclubs like leaves off a tree in fall,” read a breathless account of his round in the San Antonio Express. His weekend of 63-63 set a 36-hole scoring record on TOUR. 1946 Byron Nelson played his last Valero Texas Open in 1946, when his longtime friend and rival Ben Hogan won the tournament for the first and only time. The victory — one of Hogan’s remarkable 13 titles that season — launched a streak of five consecutive starts in which Hogan won or finished runner-up. Nelson came in third and retired from competitive golf that year with 52 wins and five major championships in his career. Hogan went on to win at least once each year through 1953, including 10 titles in 1948. But he never again contended at the VTO. 2003 Tommy Armour III shot rounds of 64-63-62-65—254 at the La Cantera Resort Course to shatter by three the PGA TOUR 72-hole scoring record set by Souchak in 1955. Armour’s four-round total of 26-under 254 included no bogeys until the 10th hole on Sunday. He won by a stunning seven shots. Even Armour seemed bemused. “You only get one trip around life,” he told reporters after his epic performance at La Cantera. “Golf is something that I love to do. I don’t play for the money. I never have.” He won $630,000, which was easy to love. 1980 Lee Trevino of Dallas finally won the Valero Texas Open at the age of 40. He holed a bending 25-foot putt — a putt he simply was trying to lag — on the 72nd hole to beat Terry Diehl by a stroke. Trevino signed for a 65 that gave him $45,000 and 27 titles on TOUR. He had suffered many close calls in his 14 starts at the VTO, one of his favorite stops because so many in the Mexican-American community in San Antonio could identify with him (and he with them). Trevino sipped a beer with reporters after his round. “I love it,” Trevino told them. “This is what I live for.”

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