Over 53 years hosting the PGA Tour, Waialae Country Club hasn’t seen many weekends quite this, well, weird.
A dubious missile alert on Saturday. Picketers fronting the entrance to the grounds on Sunday, and inside the ropes, missed opportunities galore to win the Sony Open in Hawaii in regulation.
All of it prelude to the longest playoff in tournament history.
Patton Kizzire teed off at 11:20 a.m. Sunday and took his final stroke just before 6 p.m. to close a 24-hole marathon — the last six in a playoff duel with James Hahn — to emerge with his second PGA Tour title.
“Today was a battle,” Kizzire said after the sunset trophy ceremony. “It was a wild week. It was a wild day.”
Kizzire ended regulation at 17 under along with Hahn, who began the day seven shots out of the lead and charged to the front with an 8-under-par 62.
Both saw chances to claim the $1.116 million winner’s check slip away in the playoff or scramble to survive another hole. The roller coaster finally returned to the station when Hahn’s 10-foot par putt on Waialae’s 17th green lipped out and Kizzire tapped in from 2 feet to pick up his second win of the tour’s wrap-around season and move to the top of the FedEx Cup standings.
Then again, Kizzire is no stranger to the undulations the game can present.
“My golf game is a roller coaster, it always has been,” said Kizzire, who carded a 2-under 68 in regulation. “I’m up and down and all around. … So I’m used to roller coasters. That’s what I’ve always done and I’m able to handle it.”
The odd day at the course began with picketers supporting a strike by Golf Channel technicians, who walked out for the final round telecast after negotiations broke down last week. The telecast went on with fill-ins to capture the dramatic end to a week Kizzire called “peculiar.”
“The missile threat was wild and the camera strike was unexpected as well. So amongst all that I was able to focus on playing golf,” Kizzire said.
The 31-year-old who was born in Tuscaloosa, Ala., but played collegiately at Auburn, picked up career win No. 1 at the OHL Classic at Mayakoba in November, began 2018 with a tie for 15th at the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua and earned a trip back to Maui next year with his win Sunday.
“Experience is huge, especially going toe to toe with Rickie (Fowler) there in Mexico,” Kizzire said. “That was big for me to come out on top and to know that I can do it and to see myself do it. I used that experience today.
“I didn’t have my best stuff (Sunday), but I was able to kind of get it done and make some pars when I needed to.”
Hahn teed off five groups ahead of the leaders as part of a seven-player pack at 9 under and barely within sight of third-round leader Tom Hoge.
Hahn blew past the 12 players ahead of him with a blistering stretch of seven birdies in eight holes to get to 17 under. He settled for par on No. 18, leaving him a lengthy wait for a potential playoff.
Hoge, seeking his first tour win, saw his lead swallowed up by the greenside bunker on No. 16. His wedge out of the sand stuck in the rough and a two-putt double bogey left him a shot behind Kizzire and Hahn.
Hoge’s birdie putt on the par-5 18th stayed up, leaving him in third, as did Kizzire’s 16-footer to win, sending the tournament to overtime for the second time in three years.
Neither Kizzire nor Hahn could put the other away through five playoff holes — the first two at No. 18 and the third at the par-3 17th before going back to 18 twice more — passing the tournament’s previous playoff record set in 1997 when Paul Stankowski outlasted Jim Furyk in four holes.
Hahn left a potential winner on the first playoff hole a few blades of turf away from giving him his third career win. He had another chance to win on the fifth hole but burned the right edge.
They went back to No. 17 and Hahn’s tee shot settled behind the green. He putted through about 5 feet of fairway to get to the green and his birdie attempt stopped 10 feet short. With Kizzire a tap-in away from par, Hahn’s lipout left him with a long list of opportunities to ponder on his way back to the mainland.
“If I sit in this chair talking about how great I played, I wouldn’t be myself,” Hahn said in the interview room. “I hate losing. It’s the one thing, absolutely — I’d rather lose by 100 than lose by one. I’d rather miss the cut than lose in a playoff.
“I wouldn’t be here today if I kept patting myself on the back saying, ‘Hey better luck next time. Good job.’ … Eleven birdies today or however many it was. All I could think about was the bogey on the last hole and the missed birdie putt. A lot of 5 footers next week. Going to be practicing a lot of those.”
