SAN ANTONIO – Jordan Spieth ended a fall that lasted nearly four years and closed out on Sunday with a 6-year-old under-6 player to win the Valero Texas Open for his first win since the 2017 Royal Birkdale Open Championship .
He now heads to Augusta National as one of the favorites at the Masters.
“This is a monumental victory for me,” Spieth said. “It’s been a long road. There were many times I didn’t know I would be here.”
Spieth sealed the victory with a 5-foot birdie put in the 17th hole, and won by 2 shots to Charley Hoffman.
Spieth got 82 outings on the PGA Tour without a win from Royal Birkdale. He missed the Tour Championship the last two years and almost fell out of the top 100 in the world earlier this year.
But the 27-year-old from Dallas showed signs of turning around. He was tied in the 54-hole win at Phoenix, led 2 times in the final round at Pebble Beach and was 2 behind on the final day at Bay Hill.
Bound by the lead with Matt Wallace who would enter the San Antonio TPC on Sunday, Spieth came out on top and didn’t let anyone catch him. He built a 3-shot lead with a birdie in hole 12, when Hoffman made him sweat.
Hoffman, who needed a win to return to the Masters, got a bird at par-3 13 and drilled a 20-foot putt from the strip at par-3 16 to get a shot.
But he found a bunker off the tee in the short par-4 17th and had to settle for the par as Spieth advanced 2 shots ahead, and both pared into the closing hole. Hoffman fired a 66.
Spieth, who finished between the ages of 18 and under 270, moved to number 38 in the world, returning to the top 50 for the first time in more than a year.
Wallace could not keep up and closed with a 70 to finish alone in third place. Lucas Glover (66) finished in fourth place, while Anirban Lahiri watched the last hole for a 69 to finish alone in fifth place.
Spieth is usually the Masters favorite, where he was runner-up in his debut in 2014, won thread by thread the following year and was runner-up again after losing a lead again behind in 2016.