Joe Highsmith didn’t have winning on his mind earlier in the Cognizant Classic. He was just trying to stay around to play the weekend.
Then what a weekend it was.
Highsmith shot 7-under-par 64 for the second day in a row, coming from behind to win the tournament by two strokes for his first PGA Tour victory Sunday at PGA National Resort’s Champion Course in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
“It feels really nice to just play a round of golf like that and get all the things that come from winning a tournament,” Highsmith said.
Highsmith made the cut on the number Friday, but by Sunday afternoon he had created space atop the leaderboard. He rolled in a putt from nearly 21 feet away on the par-3 17th hole for a two-stroke advantage and no one could catch him.
“The putter, for sure, saved me,” Highsmith said. “Every part of my game was really good today, but I made a lot of long putts. Those are just stuff that doesn’t really happen too often, especially on greens like this.”
He became the first PGA Tour player since Brandt Snedeker at the 2016 Farmers Insurance Open to make a cut on the number and go on to win.
“I feel like once I made it on the number, I knew I was going to go out early on Saturday and that was going to be a good chance because the scores just get so much harder as the day goes on,” Highsmith said. “I definitely took advantage of that.”
Highsmith’s bogey-free final round made the 24-year-old a winner in his 34th outing on the tour. He had three previous top-10 finishes.
The left-hander’s 19-under 265 was two strokes better than runners-up Jacob Bridgeman (64) and J.J. Spaun (66).
Max McGreevy (67) and Ben Griffin (69) tied for fourth place at 16 under.
Jake Knapp, who had led nearly nonstop since his opening-round 59, couldn’t keep up the pace. He shot 72 and finished tied for sixth place at 15 under with Russell Henley (70) and Michael Kim (71).
Knapp was undone when he unsuccessfully tried to hit out of a water hazard on the 11th hole, resulting in a triple-bogey 7. That sent him from tied for the lead to fifth place.
Knapp had one bare foot in the water when he attempted to launch the ball out of the water. But the ball slid back into the water, so he tried again.
“It’s just one of those shots you just have to end up hitting a little bit harder than I did,” Knapp said. “… It’s just like soft sand and rocks and things like that. It feels like the club gets through fine, the ball just doesn’t come through with anything on it.”
Knapp was bidding to become the first golfer on the PGA Tour to shoot a sub-60 round and go on to win since Snedeker in the 2018 Wyndham Championship.
“The 59 the first day, those don’t happen very often,” Knapp said. “So obviously that’ll hold a special place in my heart. But that being said, the whole goal at the beginning of the week is always just to put yourself in position going into the weekend, and I was happy I was able to do that. Then like I said, I think today I played super solid outside of that one hole.”
It’s the first top-10 finish for Bridgeman, who was tied for first place when his round wrapped up. The last group still had 10 holes to finish.
“I was trying to make as many birdies as I could,” Bridgeman said. “I knew I had to do something kind of extraordinary today to catch the leaders, and I caught them.”
Though his spot didn’t hold, there was a sense of accomplishment for Bridgeman.
“It’s awesome,” he said. “Kind of a monkey off the back.”
Spaun was pleased that he registered a strong round despite toughening conditions.
“There’s still a lot of good scores, but I’m sure all those guys played really well,” Spaun said.
–Field Level Media
