JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Steven Fisk stated he wouldn’t permit anything to impede his initial PGA Tour triumph, and it necessitated birdies on his concluding three holes Sunday to conclude with an 8-under 64 to secure the Sanderson Farms Championship.
Fisk and Garrick Higgo of South Africa ultimately distinguished themselves over the concluding holes at the Country Club of Jackson, and they presented an impressive display.
They were deadlocked when Fisk missed a 5-foot birdie attempt on the reachable par-4 15th. That proved to be his concluding error.
He sank a 40-foot birdie putt on the 16th, and Higgo recounted hearing someone in the audience remark, “Take that, Higgo.” The South African responded with a 12-foot birdie of his own — his fourth consecutively on the back nine — and playfully placed his finger against his lips with a grin.
Fisk struck a wedge that circled the cup and settled 3 feet away on the 17th. Higgo answered again with a wedge to just outside 3 feet. It seemed as though it would proceed down to the final moment, except that Higgo’s short birdie putt grazed the left edge.
Fisk gained a one-stroke advantage with the birdie, and then eliminated any uncertainty with an approach to 4 feet for one concluding birdie to triumph by two strokes over Higgo.
“I approached today with a mindset that nothing would impede me,” Fisk expressed during his Golf Channel interview on the 18th green. “I simply felt I’d be standing precisely here, right now, before the round commenced. I recognize I’m sufficiently capable. I believed I could achieve it.”
And he did, culminating at 24-under 264 for a victory that bestows substantial advantages for the 28-year-old who participated in his collegiate golf at Georgia Southern and who competed on the 2019 Walker Cup team at Royal Liverpool.
Fisk held the No. 135 position in the FedEx Cup standings, poised to return to the Korn Ferry Tour unless he compensated for lost ground during the remaining two months of the Fall Series. Only the top 100 at the conclusion of the season retain complete cards.
He now possesses a two-year exemption through 2027, after it required him five years to reach the tour.
“To possess some employment stability is rather pleasant,” Fisk remarked. “It’s been an extended, challenging year.”
Higgo appeared to have eliminated himself from contention with a bogey-bogey commencement to the back nine. But then he unleashed four successive birdies to equal Fisk, and was primed to render it five in a row until the brief miss at the 17th that penalized him.
“My objective was to birdie every hole,” Higgo conveyed. “I nearly accomplished that. Steven mirrored that, so congratulations to him.”
Danny Walker was deadlocked for the lead early on the back nine, but he propelled it into the water pursuing the green on the par-5 11th and incurred a bogey, and then drove left into a hazard on the 17th that resulted in another bogey. He shot 69 and tied for third with Vince Whaley (67) and Ryder Cup player Rasmus Hojgaard, who exhibited a 66-65 weekend.
All three of those players emerged with a minor consolation prize. Hojgaard was at No. 87 in the FedEx Cup, which explains why he departed the Ryder Cup celebration in New York for Mississippi. He ascended 12 positions to No. 75.
The other two advanced 18 positions, Whaley to No. 84 and Walker to No. 86.
“I won’t be quite as apprehensive, hopefully, surrounding that 100 number,” stated Walker, who had missed the cut in eight consecutive tournaments preceding the Sanderson Farms Championship. “You can merely proceed to play to triumph, genuinely. That will be a significantly more agreeable sensation.”
Hojgaard, Whaley, and Walker were among those en route to Japan for the Baycurrent Classic, the singular PGA Tour stop in Asia this year.
