Taylor Moore made birdie on two of his final four holes to earn his first PGA Tour title at the Valspar Championship.
Moore, 29, erased a three-stroke overnight deficit by shooting 4-under 67 on Sunday at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course at Palm Harbor, Florida. Moore finished with a 72-hole total of 10-under 274, a stroke better than Adam Schenk and two better than Jordan Spieth and Tommy Fleetwood.
Moore hadn’t recorded a top-10 finish on the PGA Tour this season. He entered the week ranked No. 103 in the world, but canned an 18-foot birdie putt at nine to join the trophy hunt and stuck his approach shot inside 5 feet at the 12th to climb a stroke closer. Moore made back-to-back birdies – a 6-footer at 15 and a 27-footer at 16 – to tie Schenk for the lead at 10 under.
For a share of the lead!@RazorbackMGolf alum @TaylorMooreGolf birdies No. 16 @ValsparChamp.
He is seeking his first TOUR win pic.twitter.com/6hmNgONWkY
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 19, 2023
Schenk, 31, played in his 10th straight tournament as he attempted to grab as many FedEx Cup points as he could before the birth of his first child. Wife Kourtney, who is eight months pregnant, flew in on Sunday morning and walked the entire round in his gallery.
Schenk, the 54-hole leader, chipped in for birdie at the first and built a two-stroke leader before stumbling with bogeys and Nos. 6 and 8. But he responded with birdies at Nos. 7 and 9, where he drained a 23-foot birdie putt. That was his longest putt of the tournament at that point but that figure didn’t last long. Schenk poured in a 71-foot birdie at the 12th, the longest made putt of his career, to claim the lead at 10-under and lifted his right arm to the sky.
The LONGEST putt of Adam Schenk’s career gives him the solo lead at the @ValsparChamp!
: NBC and @peacock pic.twitter.com/iCEJ4b5Zfs
— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) March 19, 2023
He strung together five straight pars until he hooked his drive by a tree at 18 and had to play his next shot left-handed. His 41-foot par putt to remain tied with Moore and force a playoff hit the flagstick but wouldn’t go down. He finished with a 70.
Adam Schenk takes a left-handed approach and finds the right rough. pic.twitter.com/aAJyFM3Y3N
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 19, 2023
Spieth, 29, won this tournament in 2015 and was seeking his 14th Tour title. He canned a 10-foot birdie putt at 14 to join the party at 10 under. Spieth worked wonders from the sand, getting up and down 12 of 14 times for the week, including at the difficult par-3 15th to stay bogey-free for the day. But he fanned his tee shot at the dogleg par-4 16th into the water guarding the right side of the hole and had to scramble to save bogey. He missed a 7-foot birdie putt at 17 and couldn’t get a 48-foot birdie putt to drop. He missed the comebacker and closed in 70 to finish tied for third with Fleetwood.
The 32-year-old Englishman has six DP World Tour victories and ranked as highly as No. 9 in the world in 2019, but he still hasn’t won on the PGA Tour. He had a share of the lead until he made a bogey at the par-5 14th hole. He closed in 70. Despite remaining winless, Fleetwood’s career earnings on the PGA Tour alone surpassed $15 million.
Two-time defending champion Sam Burns fell short of a three-peat but made a valiant effort with a final-round 67 to finish sixth.
Once asked to name the most interesting fact about him that golf fans should know, Moore said, “Well, grew up a baseball guy, so I was a pretty high-level baseball player until I was about 15 years old and actually had a scholarship from Arkansas for baseball before golf and ended up deciding to play this.
“Kind of fell in love with golf as I got older and just being in control of a little bit of everything instead of relying on teammates and umpires and things. I was either going to win by myself or lose.”
On Sunday, that decision paid off as he finally became a champion on the PGA Tour.
