WASHINGTON: 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. \u201cWhen I was over the putt I knew where it was going to go. It was just magical,\u201d Bridgeman said. \u201cI just made so many putts.\u201d<\/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
\u201cIt was super cool,\u201d Bridgeman said. \u201cIt was awesome. I felt like I had all my family and friends cheering for me. \u201cIt was pretty neat. It\u2019s super cool to perform in front of them. I\u2019m super pumped.\u201d Bridgeman will play for the United States in next week\u2019s Presidents Cup at Medinah.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a dream come true,\u201d he said. \u201cBeing able to play as a team for the United States, I\u2019m really pumped.\u201d 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. 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. 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. Poston began the day 11 strokes adrift but fired a 60 and nearly had the PGA\u2019s 17th sub-60 round.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty special,\u201d Poston said. \u201cIt was just cool to have a round like that.\u201d Poston, this year\u2019s Memorial winner who grew up in nearby Hickory, was 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. \u201cI was rolling it really well,\u201d Poston said. \u201cJust wanted to give myself a putt and I did that. Hit a good putt and it just missed.\u201d The $5 million event marked the start of the PGA Tour\u2019s fall series, which offers golfers who missed the playoffs a chance to improve their status for next year\u2019s tour. \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON: Jacob Bridgeman birdied four of the last six holes on Sunday to hold off fellow American Ben…","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13429,"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":[4963,526,4962,4961,4964,4965,200],"class_list":["post-14470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacob-bridgeman","tag-bridgeman","tag-jacob-bridgeman","tag-kuwait-news","tag-kuwait-times","tag-pga-title","tag-sizzling-61","tag-wins","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@fogolf\/117335053096725100","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14470","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=14470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/pros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}