Snedeker Ends Eight-Year Drought at Myrtle Beach Classic

As Brandt Snedeker stood at the 18th hole at The Dunes Golf & Beach Club late Sunday afternoon after missing a par putt and suffering the first bogey of his round, the 45-year-old PGA Tour veteran briefly wiped his eyes – as if the realization he likely had just lost the ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic had brought him to tears.

But just 10 minutes later, after third-round leader Mark Hubbard had finished with his own costly final-hole bogey, Snedeker – who had spent that time on the driving range, awaiting a possible playoff – embraced longtime caddie Heath Holt and shed tears for real, this time tears of joy.

“Yeah, it’s been a roller coaster,” he said of the day, his near-flawless final-round 5-under par 66 for a one-shot win and, in fact, his entire year. “I feel amazing, so lucky to still be out here doing what I love to do.

“To have a chance to win a golf tournament at my age and to be able to pull it out is something super special … I don’t know what else to say.”

In fact, there was plenty to say – by Snedeker and also by an understandably crushed Hubbard, who had the first PGA Tour title of his career in his hands … until he didn’t.

“Yeah, (I’m) super bummed,” a remarkably composed Hubbard, 36, said afterward. “I definitely felt like it was going to be my day. I felt like I played, you know, really solid all week.

“I feel like I was definitely nervous both days (Saturday, when he had forged a one-shot lead, and again Sunday), and I feel like internally I handled it really well. So I was proud of that. I just got ahead of two drives on (holes) 16 and 18, and that cost me.”

Talk about a day of contrasting emotions. By failing to close the deal, making bogeys at those holes to lose the lead and then the tournament, Hubbard missed a chance to end a streak of 274 tournaments without a victory, instead winding up with the second runner-up finish of his career.

Snedeker, in turn, ended an eight-year victory drought – a total of 2,821 days, dating to the last of his nine previous PGA Tour wins at the 2019 Wyndham Championship – a stretch marked most prominently by a 2022 surgery to repair his damaged sternum that might’ve ended his career.

Throw in the fact that Snedeker will captain the U.S. team in September’s Presidents Cup, and he again failed to stay dry-eyed as he discussed Sunday’s thrilling victory and what it meant to a player long past the prime of his career.

“This is probably as emotional as I’ve been winning a golf tournament before, for sure,” he said. “I’ve been through so much since the last time this happened. (I’m) so very grateful, very appreciative of it and trying to take it all in.”

The numbers – Snedeker finished with a near-flawless 5-under 66 and 18-under total; Hubbard shot a closing 1-under 70 to finish a shot back – didn’t come close to telling the day’s story. Both players were brilliant at times, only to stumble down the stretch.

Snedeker, who had 21 birdies and an eagle for the week vs. five bogeys, reeled off birdies at the second and fourth holes to close within a shot of Hubbard’s lead. On the thrilling back nine, the two players put on a mano-a-mano show, with Hubbard maintaining a one-shot lead with birdies at Nos. 12, 13 and 15 – only to see Snedeker do the same and tie him at 18-under.

“I had a number in my head (that) if I got to 19-under, I thought that would do it,” Snedeker said.

But at the par-4 16th, Snedeker appeared to have blown a chance to go ahead when, after a daring shot from the pine straw left of the fairway to within five feet of the cup, he missed one of the few putts he failed to convert all week.

“I hit a bad shot on 16, the first real bad one of the day,” he said. “(But I) hit a great approach shot, hit a great putt (and) just mis-read it.”

A hole behind, Hubbard birdied the par-5 15th to get to 19-under for a one-shot lead. But Snedeker then pulled off the shot of the tournament at the par-3 17th. His birdie putt from about 20 feet dropped, and the two players were tied yet again.

“I was really mad walking to the 17th tee,” Snedeker said, “and I told myself to kind of get my head out of my putt and get going. I hit a great 7-iron and kept telling myself, ‘I’m the best putter in the world, I’m rolling it great. Get out of your own way and let it go.”

Finally at the 18th hole, Snedeker blinked, hitting his “worst shot of the week” far right, forcing him to chip back the fairway; a poor third shot left him 18 feet left of the flag and he missed the putt to fall back to 18-under.

“I really thought I had to par the last hole to win, and I got way too quick, too excited,” he said. “(Then) I hit a bad wedge shot. Hit a great putt, thought I’d made it (but) it kind of leaked out.” At that point, “I thought I lost my chance.”

But back at the 16th, an admittedly nervous Hubbard left his 20-foot birdie putt about six feet short … then missed that and made bogey, creating yet another tie. Then came his own pushed tee shot at 18, forcing him, too, to punch out and hit a third shot to the green that came up 25 feet short of the pin. When his potential tying putt missed left, spectators audibly sighed at Hubbard’s disappointment.

Snedeker, trying to stay calm on the driving range as he waited for Hubbard to finish, believed he still had that chance. “Those last three holes, on Sunday when things are on the line, they get a lot harder,” he said.

Thrilled to get the victory, Snedeker said he felt for Hubbard. “Unfortunately, Mark wasn’t able to kind of finish his round off,” he said. “I feel terrible for him.” But, he added, “I’ve been there a thousand times, it seems like. I hope he learned a lot from today, and hopefully he wins out here soon.”

Snedeker was still dealing with emotions after his round was in the books. Asked what the win meant to me, he teared up once more.

“I knew you would make me cry,” he told a questioner. “It means everything. To not have my (PGA Tour) card the last couple of years … to be struggling to do what I Snedeker Putting Green love, to still have a passion to play this game the way I want to play it and show people I can still do it …