Jacob Bridgeman birdied four of the last six holes on Sunday to hold off fellow American Ben James and win the PGA Biltmore Championship by two strokes.<\/p>\n
Bridgeman fired a 10-under-par 61 with eight birdies and an eagle to finish 72 holes on 26-under 258 at The Cliffs at Walnut Cove in Asheville, North Carolina.<\/p>\n
“When I was over the putt I knew where it was going to go. It was just magical,” Bridgeman said. “I just made so many putts.”<\/p>\n
It was the second career PGA crown for 26-year-old Bridgeman, a native of nearby Inman, South Carolina, playing in front of family and friends who captured his first in February at Riviera.<\/p>\n
“It was super cool,” Bridgeman said. “It was awesome. I felt like I had all my family and friends cheering for me.<\/p>\n
“It was pretty neat. It’s super cool to perform in front of them. I’m super pumped.”<\/p>\n
Bridgeman will play for the United States in next week’s Presidents Cup at Medinah.<\/p>\n
“It’s a dream come true,” he said. “Being able to play as a team for the United States, I’m really pumped.”<\/p>\n
James matched his career-low PGA round with a 61 to finish second on 260, one stroke ahead of fellow Americans Ricky Castillo and Neal Shipley with Americans J.T. Poston and Jackson Koivun sharing fifth on 263.<\/p>\n
Bridgeman birdied three of the first four holes, added a 10-foot eagle putt at the par-five eighth and sank a five-foot birdie putt at the 10th for a one-stroke lead.<\/p>\n
James grabbed a share of the lead with a birdie at the par-five 15th but Bridgeman answered with a birdie from just outside five feet at the 13th.<\/p>\n
When James made a 26-foot birdie putt at 16, Bridgeman responded with a 12-foot birdie putt at the par-three 14th to regain the solo lead.<\/p>\n
Bridgeman tapped in for birdie at 15 and James did the same at the par-five 17th to stay on his heels.<\/p>\n
A closing par by James left him needing a mistake by Bridgeman in the last two holes but the leader added a tap-in birdie at 17 and parred 18 to secure the $900,000 top prize.<\/p>\n
Poston began the day 11 strokes adrift but fired a 60 and nearly had the PGA’s 17th sub-60 round.<\/p>\n
“It was pretty special,” Poston said. “It was just cool to have a round like that.”<\/p>\n
Poston, this year’s Memorial winner who grew up in nearby Hickory,\u00a0was in the first group off the back nine after a fog delay and reached 18 needing a birdie for 59. He parred after missing a putt from just beyond 26 feet.<\/p>\n
“I was rolling it really well,” Poston said. “Just wanted to give myself a putt and I did that. Hit a good putt and it just missed.”<\/p>\n
The $5 million event marked the start of the PGA Tour’s fall series, which offers golfers who missed the playoffs a chance to improve their status for next year’s tour.<\/p>\n
js\/rcw<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacob Bridgeman birdied four of the last six holes on Sunday to hold off fellow American Ben James…","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"csco_display_header_overlay":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_volume":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[115],"tags":[526],"class_list":["post-13170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacob-bridgeman","tag-jacob-bridgeman","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@fogolf\/117305502906523556","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}