American Brian Harman returned to success after almost two years by winning the Valero Texas Open with 279 (66 66 72 75, -9) shots. He led the last three rounds, beating Ryan Gerard by three shots, second with 282 (-6), and Maverick McNealy and Andrew Novak by four, third with 283 (-5).
In the PGA Tour tournament, played at the TPC San Antonio (Oaks Course, par 72) in San Antonio, Texas, where winds reaching 28 miles per hour affected the scores in the fourth round, Francesco Molinari ranked 40th with 290 (70 70 72 78, +2).
Pga, results
Brian Harman, 38, from Savannah (Georgia), at his 377th appearance, brought to four the titles on the circuit where he had not won since July 2023, when he had won a Major, the Open Championship. He led the final round in 75 (+3) shots with three birdies, four bogeys, a double bogey, the highest partial to close achieved by a winner, since the Spaniard Jon Rahm prevailed with the same final score in the Memorial Tournament of 2020, and the second in the tournament after the 76 of Steven Bowditch, scored in 2014. Thanks to the victory, Harman rose from 28th to 22nd place in the World Ranking, from 83rd to 19th in the FedEx Cup ranking and received a check for 1,710,000 dollars on a prize pool of 9,500,000 dollars.
Patrick Fishburn, Bud Cauley, Chan Kim, Chad Ramey, Tom Hoge, Japanese Ryo Hisatsune and Danish Thorbjorn Olesen occupied fifth place with 284 (-4). Jordan Spieth was in 12th place with 285 (-3) and Tony Finau was only in 56th place with 293 (+5), with the “hole in one” he scored in the second round not having paid off much (hole 16, par 3, 199 yards, 8-iron).
Francesco Molinari, who gave up in the final after three good rounds in which he had climbed up to 10th place, cashed for the third time in the six events he has taken part in this season. Matteo Manassero, 80th with 144 (69 75, par), was eliminated at the cut, as were the Swede Ludvig Aberg, world number 5, and Akshay Bhatia, who was defending his title (also 80th), and the Japanese Hideki Matsuyama, number 6 in the World Ranking, 94th with 145 (+1).
