Nearly 1 million USD ‘evaporated’ because of a broken putt

Matsuyama, Burns and Abraham Ancer had to play extra holes to compete for the championship because all three had the same score of -16 after 72 standard holes on August 9.

The three-way play-off took place on hole 18, par4 at TPC Southwind, par70 in Memphis, Tennessee.

In the first turn, Matsuyama got a birdie opportunity six meters away. If putt in, the Japanese golfer won the championship with a bonus of 1.82 million USD. But the ball unfortunately rolled the left rim of the hole.

Matsuyama putt coated lake rim

After that, he kept par, similar to Ancer and Burns.

The second round was still the bottom hole, Burns’ turn to roll the right rim of the hole in a putt 2.4 meters away.

Sam Burn putt coated the rim of the hole

If he gets a birdie on the first putt, Burns will put a lot of pressure on his Mexican opponent, Ancer with the possibility of winning the final or going to the third extra hole. However, the American player only kept par like Matsuyama. In contrast, Ancer finished with a birdie 1.2 meters away.

Ancer took to the podium – the first time after 121 attempts on the PGA Tour.

Matsuyama and Burns with T2, the same prize money of 917,500 USD.

Before that, Ancer after 54 holes was four strokes behind Harris English at the top of the table, two strokes away from Bryson DeChambeau (T2). On the closing day, English and DeChambeau all broke up in the second half of the field, so Ancer, Matsuyama and Burns accidentally got the opportunity to finish in the top 2.

Before WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, Ancer represented Mexican golf and returned to T14 in Tokyo 2020 on August 1. That time there was no bonus, but yesterday, he received 1.82 million USD. Matsuyama didn’t win a medal when his hometown hosted the last Olympics.

Quoc Huy