Davis Riley wins Colonial for first individual PGA Tour victory

FORT WORTH, Texas — Davis Riley was training every week earlier than Colonial when he acquired an unsettling name that his older sister had a seizure at work, which led to the invention of a tumor on her mind and surgical procedure the following day.

Riley wasn’t even certain then that he would have the ability to, and even wish to, play within the Charles Schwab Problem.

“When you’ve anyone that near you, all of the worst-case situations are going via your head,” Riley mentioned. “It was definitely a scary feeling fascinated by how you may lose your sister.”

The household acquired an enormous sigh of reduction when the surgical procedure was profitable and the tumor was noncancerous. His dad and mom informed him that his sister wished him to go play.

So Riley did, and acquired his first particular person victory on the PGA Tour after taking part in within the remaining group Sunday with Scottie Scheffler. Riley shot even-par 70 to complete at 14-under 266, 5 strokes forward of the world’s No. 1 participant and Keegan Bradley.

After starting the ultimate spherical with a 4-stroke lead, Riley gave up a stroke with a bogey on the second gap when he drove into the precise tough then hit into the bunker. However that was the closest Scheffler — or anyone else — would get with wind gusts of 20 mph and higher blowing all through the day, and with agency greens.

The 27-year-old Riley’s solely different PGA Tour win got here when he and Nick Hardy gained the Zurich Traditional staff occasion in New Orleans final 12 months. The Mississippi native’s win at historic Colonial, which had been utterly restored since final 12 months’s event, earned him $1.638 million, the standard winner’s plaid jacket and a completely restored and modernized 1975 Stingray automobile.

Riley’s dad and mom had been nonetheless along with his sister and never there for his victory. However Hardy, who teed off 5 hours earlier than the ultimate group, was there to greet him after his remaining 6-foot par putt.

“We have got a particular friendship and clearly having our maiden PGA Tour in collectively was definitely particular,” Riley mentioned. “We really performed the primary two days collectively this week. So there’s positively a stage of consolation there. In all probability an enormous purpose why I acquired off to a very good begin.”

The ultimate spherical was performed on the identical day that Grayson Murray’s dad and mom mentioned their 30-year-old son took his personal life Saturday, a day after the two-time PGA Tour winner had cited sickness when withdrawing from the occasion with two holes left in his second spherical. The household had insisted to PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan for play to proceed.

Bradley, who gained twice final 12 months, was at 10 beneath after a 4-foot birdie on the seventeenth gap. However he missed a similar-length likelihood to save lots of par at No. 18 after his tee shot and method each ended up in the precise tough.

“My finest spherical of the 12 months in all probability. Hung in there,” Bradley mentioned. “I actually felt snug on the market in rivalry, which isn’t all the time the case.”

Colonial was his first high 10 since being in a three-way playoff on the Sony Open in January gained by Murray.

Riley curled in a 27-foot birdie on the 229-yard par-3 No. 4 that’s the center of the famed “Horrible Horseshoe,” which continues to be the hardest three-hole stretch on the course. Scheffler bogeyed there and once more at No. 5 after hitting into the precise tough working parallel to the Trinity River.

“It was definitely good to begin out with a cushion,” Riley mentioned. “You bought the No. 1 participant on the planet respiration down your neck, probably not any shot lead is just too snug. … I attempted to deal with as we speak as if we each began tied and I simply tried to win the day.”

By time Riley closed out the entrance 9 with a 9-foot birdie putt, he was six strokes forward of Scheffler.

“I simply wasn’t capable of put as a lot stress as I’d have hoped to placed on Davis early within the spherical,” Scheffler mentioned. “He made that bogey on 2 and answered it actually fast with a birdie on 4 and did not actually give us a lot of a gap as we speak. … It was a well-earned win for him.”

Scheffler was taking part in near his Dallas house every week after his arrest within the morning darkness earlier than his second spherical of the PGA Championship in Louisville, Kentucky, when police had been investigating a pedestrian fatality and arrested — and briefly jailed — Scheffler for not following visitors instructions.

After tying for eighth at Valhalla, Colonial was the eleventh top-10 end in Scheffler’s 12 tournaments this 12 months. Earlier than the PGA Championship, he had taken three weeks off for the beginning of his first baby after back-to-back wins on the Masters and the RBC Heritage at Hilton Head.

It was Scheffler’s third consecutive top-three end at Colonial, even after a gap 72 that was the primary time this season he failed to interrupt par in a primary spherical. That additionally included his first triple bogey of the season, when his tee shot on the par-3 thirteenth gap went into the pond fronting that raised inexperienced.

No. 13 was Scheffler’s first birdie Sunday, however he was nonetheless 7 strokes again at that time. After the triple Thursday, he had performed 44 consecutive bogey-free holes — together with rounds of 65 and 63, till Nos. 4 and 5 on Sunday.