Before lining up his final shot of the Sony Open in Hawaii Sunday, Matt Kuchar glanced skyward and stared wide-eyed.

Then, a smile, seemingly as wide as the rainbow that had been arching over Kahala, quickly spread across his face as he animatedly pointed upward, directing caddie John Wood to take it in.

“It was too cool to have a rainbow appear on the 18th hole,” Kuchar said. “I’d never had a tournament with a three-shot lead going into 18, where you kind of feel like just it was my tournament, and (I) could really enjoy the 18th hole.”

After an afternoon-long battle with runner-up Andrew Putnam in the final threesome, the lingering rainbow made an emphatic and poignant exclamation point on what became a four-stroke, 22-under-par victory and, indeed, the early 2019 season for Kuchar.

The overall score of 258 was Kuchar’s best in an 18-year PGA Tour career.

Encouraged by a pro-Kuchar crowd that exhorted him with choruses of “Kooch! Kooch Kooch!” the rarely demonstrative, aw-shucks Georgia native showed plenty of emotion this day.

After assuming a one-shot lead on the 14th hole, where Putnam missed the fairway for a bogey, fist pumps accompanied Kuchar’s birdies on the 15th and 16th holes as he expanded the lead.

To understand where some of the pent-up emotion came from it helps to remember the journey Kuchar has been on. He won twice in 2013 and, again, in 2014.

Then, despite consistent strong play and string of top-10 finishes, he endured a victory drought of just over 41⁄2 years — 1,667 days and 116 PGA Tour starts, if you’re counting — before he won the Mayakoba Golf Classic in Mexico in November.

Along the way he failed to make the Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup squads for the first time in a decade and dropped out of a place in the tour’s top 70 for the first time in 11 years.

“I was pretty frustrated. I was definitely disappointed, frustrated,” Kuchar said. “There were some big things that I missed out on. I was very frustrated.”

On a tour increasingly taken over by talented, upcoming youngsters, the 40-year-old Kuchar thought he was close, but couldn’t quite seem to turn the corner on victory.

He said, “I didn’t ever give up hope. I think the frustrating thing was I felt like I was doing some good things and just not seeing results. That, sometimes, is hard to take when you think you’re on the right course and the right path and not seeing results, to (stay) the course.”

Now, suddenly and impressively, he has won twice — his eighth and ninth PGA Tour triumphs overall — in the space of 63 remarkable days and banked nearly $2.6 million.

“I’m tickled, thrilled to have won two events early in the year,” Kuchar said. “To have won two out of three starts on the PGA Tour is mind boggling to me. (This) absolutely sets up the year to be in great position for the FedEx Cup. There is a lot of year left and a lot of great things that are out there to be done.”

Afterward, in the glow of the rainbow before he hoisted his sons and hugged his wife, Kuchar embraced Putnam on the 18th green and told him, “(I) enjoyed it, thanks for the battle.”

Putnam said, “It takes a lot to win on the PGA Tour and I just didn’t quite have it (today).”

Kuchar did and this day — and week — at Waialae belonged to him, right down to the crowning of a rainbow finish.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.