Jordan Spieth officially returns to the winner’s circle as he held on to Charley Hoffman to win the Valero Texas Open on Sunday at the TPC San Antonio. Here’s everything you need to know:
Classification: Jordan Spieth (-18), Charley Hoffman (-16), Matt Wallace (-15), Lucas Glover (-12), Anirban Lahiri (-10)
That means: Nearly four years and 83 starts since his last PGA Tour victory, or any other victory, Spieth is champion again. He looked vintage, closing in with a great and safe 6 under 66, and turned his best third lead of the season into the 54-hole Tour of the season in his first win since the 2017 open championship. With four first 10 years and now with a win in his last seven starts, Spieth enters this week’s Masters Tournament with a bit of momentum and will look to win his second green jacket by becoming the fifth player (and first since Phil Mickelson in 2006) to win at Augusta National after also winning the previous week’s Tour test.
Valero Texas Open: full field results | Full coverage
How it happened: Spieth entered Sunday tied at the top of the standings with Wallace at 12 below, and two shots at Hoffman. At first, Spieth looked a little nervous, hitting a couple of tea balls in the first holes and watching the par-5 in second place despite not crashing from the fairway. However, these nerves did not last long. Spieth never lost the lead and got things going almost by making an ace in the 174-yard, par-3 third. He made the two-footed player, one of his four front birds again, take the first solo lead of the day and never looked back.
“In fact, I felt very light,” he said later. “I felt like I just wanted to go out and smile, try and have fun. That has been a challenge for me these Sundays when I’ve been in contention.”
Spieth details the “long way to go” to win since 2017
After years of fighting his swing, Spieth hit the clutch shots down the stretch, looking especially sharp with the wedges as he disappeared challenge after challenge for Hoffman, the all-time money winner of the tournament struggling to get a ticket to Augusta National When Hoffman sank a 20-foot par-3 16th to reach a shot from Spieth for the third time in the final round, Spieth climbed to the next tee and drove 75 yards to the 366-yard, par-4 17th to set up another birdie and return to Hoffman’s two. And since Spieth always finds a way to make it interesting, he pasted a rough eight-iron, and barely on a video marker, while putting himself in the final hole of the par-5, but managed to escape with the pair and win by two.
All day: Patton Kizzire went bogey-free with seven birdies to shoot 65 and reach his fourth T-11 final or better this season.
Shot of the day: Spieth hit enough wedge shots in the back nine to set up important birds, but the tee ball at number 3 was the spark of his final round.
Biggest disappointment: Wallace. Spieth and Hoffman turned the finish line into a two-man show, as the Englishman, who closed in 69 thanks to three consecutive birdies to close, was essentially just a spectator in the final trio.
Appointment of the day: “Man, it’s been a long road. There were many times I wasn’t sure if I’d be here talking to you [Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis] about it right now. I never doubted myself to be able to get back where I wanted to go, but when you lose confidence it is often hard to see the positive in the future. … This is a monumental victory for me. It’s a question I’ve been thinking about for a long time. ” – Spieth