Xander Schauffele scored two points during singles play and fourth-seeded New York Golf Club pulled away for a 6-4 upset victory over top-seeded Los Angeles Golf Club in the first match of the TGL playoffs on Monday night in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
New York advanced to next week’s best-of-three championship series, where it will face the winner between the Bay Golf Club and Atlanta Drive GC.
After an evenly played first seven holes, New York won the eighth hole when Schauffele knocked in a birdie putt from 4 feet set up by Cameron Young’s approach. He proceeded to defeat LAGC’s Collin Morikawa at the par-5 10th and the par-4 13th, while Rickie Fowler beat Tommy Fleetwood of England for another New York point on the par-4 11th.
In both of the singles holes that Schauffele won, he “threw the hammer” mid-hole looking to double the point value of the hole — the latter when he hit his approach at the 13th 30 feet closer to the pin than Morikawa did. In both cases, LAGC declined the hammer and conceded a single point.
New York was the last team to squeak into the league’s inaugural playoff field.
“I think you look at how we started out, you know, it was a poor start,” Schauffele said. “I was watching from home [due to injury]. The boys started rallying. [England’s Matt Fitzgerald] was with us today … I think we’re all pretty happy. We thought it was possible, but we knew it was going to be a long road. We’re definitely happy to be here.”
Fleetwood had a chance to win the 14th hole against Fowler and keep LAGC alive, but his 5-footer to win lipped out. It was LAGC’s first time losing in regulation all year. Its only loss of the regular season came in overtime.
“I think we played really nicely and we had our chances,” LAGC’s Sahith Theegala said, “but just one or two putts that very easily could have gone in just lipped out for us, and that was kind of the deciding factor.”
