Matthieu Pavon hangs on for first PGA Tour win at Farmers

Matthieu Pavon made the one mistake he couldn’t.

Leading the Farmers Insurance Open by one with six holes to go within the ultimate spherical, Pavon, a PGA Tour rookie making his third begin as a member, airmailed the 14th inexperienced.

What’s past the 14th inexperienced at Torrey Pines South, you ask? Nothing good when you’re taking part in golf.

After the inexperienced is a steep embankment of tough that’s significantly shorter than the remainder of the five-inch tough across the two-time U.S. Open host. Once you hit the crimson penalty space line, it doesn’t take lengthy for a golf ball to turn out to be misplaced within the bluffs of the Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve. That’s the place Pavon’s ball appeared to be headed.

However, the subsequent time CBS’s cameras minimize to Pavon, he was standing over his third shot. Somehow, the ball hung up within the intermediate minimize of tough.

On a tough course just like the South course, it was the form of break that separates winners and losers, and that’s what it did. Pavon managed to pitch his third at 14 to a foot, then made a 24-foot par save at 16 earlier than lastly muscling a 3rd shot on the 72nd gap from the deep tough to only eight toes to seal the Farmers Insurance Open title.

“I can’t thank the PGA Tour enough to give us the opportunity to come from Europe and compete here in America against the best players in the world,” Pavon stated. “That’s always been the dream for me. I got finally a shot and I took it.”

Pavon appeared on the verge of blowing his lead when he missed a brief par putt on 17 and drove right into a bunker on 18. He laid up within the tough after which someway willed his method over the pond at the well-known par-5 finisher and made the putt to protect a one-shot win over Nicolai Hojgaard after he birdied the 72nd too.

With his first PGA Tour win, Pavon turns into the first winner who earned membership from the Top 10 of final yr’s DP World Tour standings after the class was added for this season. Pavon additionally nabbed his first DP World Tour win final fall at the Acciona Open de España. He then birdied his ultimate 4 holes at the DP World Tour Championship to complete T5 and soar up 5 spots within the standings, sufficient to earn one of many 10 playing cards awarded to prime finishers on the European Tour with no different PGA Tour standing.

Ironically, his four-birdie run in Dubai jumped him handed Hojgaard’s twin brother, Rasmus within the standings to earn the ultimate PGA Tour card

Pavon’s win can be the first PGA Tour title by a participant from France. The win will put Pavon in prime place to signify his nation at residence at this summer season’s Olympics in Paris.

Pavon was battling for a lot of the day with Hojgaard and Stephan Jaeger, who, like Pavon and the remainder of the golfers within the prime 9 heading into the ultimate spherical, was looking out for his first PGA Tour win.

The Frenchman took the solo lead after Jaeger’s bogey on 12 and by no means relinquished it the remainder of the day. His brief miss on the 71st opened up quite a lot of prospects as he performed the ultimate gap with only a one-shot lead over Hogjaard, who reached the 72nd inexperienced in two by the point Pavon stepped as much as his third.

But from 143 yards, Pavon’s third benefited from a rain-softened ultimate inexperienced because it landed in the course of the placing floor after which took the slope again towards the outlet. His ultimate putt simply barely dripped over the sting to slam the door.

“I was so pumped at that time, I know I had the energy to lift that ball up on the green,” he stated. “I kind of aimed to the middle of the green knowing the face would close a little bit because it’s quite deep and thick. That ball came out like a butterfly and it really feed the slope on the green and left myself a nine-footer or something. That was the right time to prove I have the guts to finish that tournament and I did it so I’m so happy about that last hole.”

Jack Hirsh

Golf.com Editor

Jack Hirsh is an assistant editor at GOLF. A Pennsylvania native, Jack is a 2020 graduate of Penn State University, incomes levels in broadcast journalism and political science. He was captain of his highschool golf workforce and lately returned to this system to function head coach. Jack additionally nonetheless *tries* to stay aggressive in native amateurs. Before becoming a member of GOLF, Jack spent two years working at a TV station in Bend, Oregon, primarily as a Multimedia Journalist/reporter, but additionally producing, anchoring and even presenting the climate. He may be reached at jack.hirsh@golf.com.