FORT WORTH, Texas — Davis Riley was practising per week earlier than Colonial when he received an unsettling name that his older sister had a seizure at work, which led to the invention of a tumor on her mind and surgical procedure the following day.
Riley wasn’t even positive then that he would have the ability to, and even wish to, play within the Charles Schwab Problem.
“When you’ve got any individual that near you, all of the worst-case situations are going via your head,” Riley mentioned. “It was actually a scary feeling enthusiastic about how you could possibly lose your sister.”
The household received an enormous sigh of reduction when the surgical procedure was profitable and the tumor was noncancerous. His dad and mom advised him that his sister wished him to go play.
So Riley did, and received his first particular person victory on the PGA Tour after enjoying within the last group Sunday with Scottie Scheffler. Riley shot even-par 70 to complete at 14-under 266, 5 strokes forward of the world’s No. 1 participant and Keegan Bradley.
After starting the ultimate spherical with a 4-stroke lead, Riley gave up a stroke with a bogey on the second gap when he drove into the proper tough then hit into the bunker. However that was the closest Scheffler — or anyone else — would get with wind gusts of 20 mph and better blowing all through the day, and with agency greens.
The 27-year-old Riley’s solely different PGA Tour win got here when he and Nick Hardy gained the Zurich Traditional staff occasion in New Orleans final yr. The Mississippi native’s win at historic Colonial, which had been utterly restored since final yr’s match, earned him $1.638 million, the normal winner’s plaid jacket and a totally restored and modernized 1975 Stingray automobile.
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Riley’s dad and mom have been nonetheless along with his sister and never there for his victory. However Hardy, who teed off 5 hours earlier than the ultimate group, was there to greet him after his last 6-foot par putt.
“We have a particular friendship and clearly having our maiden PGA Tour in collectively was actually particular,” Riley mentioned. “We really performed the primary two days collectively this week. So there’s undoubtedly a degree of consolation there. Most likely an enormous motive why I received off to a superb begin.”
The ultimate spherical was performed on the identical day that Grayson Murray’s dad and mom mentioned their 30-year-old son took his personal life Saturday, a day after the two-time PGA Tour winner had cited sickness when withdrawing from the occasion with two holes left in his second spherical. The household had insisted to PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan for play to proceed.
Bradley, who gained twice final yr, was at 10 below after a 4-foot birdie on the seventeenth gap. However he missed a similar-length likelihood to avoid wasting par at No. 18 after his tee shot and method each ended up in the proper tough.
“My finest spherical of the yr in all probability. Hung in there,” Bradley mentioned. “I actually felt comfy on the market in rivalry, which isn’t at all times the case.”
Colonial was his first high 10 since being in a three-way playoff on the Sony Open in January gained by Murray.
Riley curled in a 27-foot birdie on the 229-yard par-3 No. 4 that’s the center of the famed “Horrible Horseshoe,” which remains to be the hardest three-hole stretch on the course. Scheffler bogeyed there and once more at No. 5 after hitting into the proper tough operating parallel to the Trinity River.
“It was actually good to begin out with a cushion,” Riley mentioned. “You bought the No. 1 participant on the planet respiration down your neck, probably not any shot lead is simply too comfy. … I attempted to deal with right this moment as if we each began tied and I simply tried to win the day.”
By time Riley closed out the entrance 9 with a 9-foot birdie putt, he was six strokes forward of Scheffler.
“I simply wasn’t in a position to put as a lot stress as I’d have hoped to placed on Davis early within the spherical,” Scheffler mentioned. “He made that bogey on 2 and answered it actually fast with a birdie on 4 and did not actually give us a lot of a gap right this moment. … It was a well-earned win for him.”
Scheffler was enjoying near his Dallas dwelling per week after his arrest within the morning darkness earlier than his second spherical of the PGA Championship in Louisville, Kentucky, when police have been investigating a pedestrian fatality and arrested — and briefly jailed — Scheffler for not following visitors instructions.
After tying for eighth at Valhalla, Colonial was the eleventh top-10 end in Scheffler’s 12 tournaments this yr. Earlier than the PGA Championship, he had taken three weeks off for the beginning of his first little one after back-to-back wins on the Masters and the RBC Heritage at Hilton Head.
It was Scheffler’s third consecutive top-three end at Colonial, even after a gap 72 that was the primary time this season he failed to interrupt par in a primary spherical. That additionally included his first triple bogey of the season, when his tee shot on the par-3 thirteenth gap went into the pond fronting that raised inexperienced.
No. 13 was Scheffler’s first birdie Sunday, however he was nonetheless 7 strokes again at that time. After the triple Thursday, he had performed 44 consecutive bogey-free holes — together with rounds of 65 and 63, till Nos. 4 and 5 on Sunday.
