Brandt Snedeker embraced his caddie Heath Holt on the driving range of The Dunes Golf and Beach Club and sobbed.
After Mark Hubbard missed a par putt on the 18th hole Sunday to fall out of a tie for the lead, Snedeker stopped preparing for a possible playoff and the realization of winning again on the PGA Tour set in.
Snedeker shot a 5-under-par 66 in the final round of the third $4 million ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic to finish a shot ahead of Hubbard at 18-under 266.
Snedeker’s 10th tour victory is his first in eight years – a winless drought that covered 2,821 days – and comes after the 45-year-old had a major surgery on his sternum in 2023 and has been playing on the tour with conditional status this year.
“It means everything,” said Snedeker, who was still emotional during his post-tournament press conference. “To not have my [tour] card the last couple of years, to be struggling to do what I love, you know, to still have a passion to play this game the way I want to play it and to show people how I can still do it, especially not playing my best and struggling the way I did to come back and fight, claw my way back and play some great golf this year.”
Snedeker now has full exemption on the tour through the 2028 season and qualifies to play in this upcoming week’s PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club in Pennsylvania. It will be Snedeker’s 51st major but first since the 2021 British Open.
“I feel amazing,” Snedeker said. “I feel so lucky to still be out here still 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’m just so pumped. . . . Ten wins out here is a huge accomplishment for me, and I’m super excited about it.”
Both Snedeker and Hubbard separated themselves from the rest of the field with birdies on the back nine. Snedeker birdied the par-3 12th with a tee shot to 3 feet, bunker shot to 2 feet on the par-5 13th and two-putt on the par-5 15th.
Hubbard, meanwhile, who was seeking his first victory in 274 PGA Tour events, also birdied holes 12, 13 and 15.
Snedeker missed a 5-foot putt for birdie on 16 after hitting a great recovery shot from the pine straw, then rolled in a 20-foot birdie putt on the 17th to pull back into a tie for the lead after Hubbard had bogeyed the 16th two pairings behind.
“I was really mad walking to 17 tee and told myself to kind of get my head out of my butt and get going,” Snedeker said. “I hit a great 7-iron to about 20 feet 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.’ ”
Snedeker’s only bogey of the day following six birdies came on the 18th hole when he hit his tee shot well right into pine straw to the right of the fairway, punched out and missed a 33-foot par putt. He was visibly upset and put his forehead in his hands below his hat on the green.
“I thought I had lost the golf tournament. I really did,” Snedeker said. “I thought I needed to make a par there to have a chance, and took a moment to kind of think about what I let slip through my fingers. . . . I had a moment there where I was beating myself up pretty good about what could have been.”
Hubbard had played the back nine at The Dunes Club 17-under for the week without a bogey before making bogeys on two of the final three holes.
He missed a 6-foot par putt on the 16th, and pushed his tee shot right into heavy rough on the 18th, laid up and missed a 25-foot downhill putt that broke a few feet to the left that he needed to force a playoff.
“I mean, I’m super bummed,” Hubbard said. “I definitely felt like it was going to be my day. I felt like I played, you know, really solid all week.”
The runner-up finish is Hubbard’s second, joining the 2019 Houston Open. He now has 18 career top-10 finishes.
Hubbard said he has been working on not being so hard on himself on the golf course, and he believes he saw the results of it this week.
“I feel like I was definitely nervous both [weekend] days, and I feel like internally I handled it really well. So I was proud of that,” Hubbard said. “Right now I feel a lot better than I would have in past situations, and just overall throughout the week I had a lot more fun out there. I just felt a lot more calm and less stressed, and that was really nice.
“I’d like to continue feeling that throughout the rest of the year.”
Snedeker’s conditional status on tour this year is based on his finish of 129th on the FedExCup points standings last year. He has played in the events he can, and received a pair of sponsor exemptions for two of his eight starts this year.
Snedeker had been playing better of late entering the Myrtle Beach Classic, with three straight top-40 finishes after missing his first four cuts of the year.
The win is worth $720,000 for Snedeker, who eclipses $42 million in tour earnings, as well as a $250,000 flight credit from tournament sponsor ONEflight, a private aviation company.
“There were points in the last couple of years I didn’t think I could win again,” Snedeker said. “My golf game wasn’t very good. My body wasn’t feeling great. Lots of self-doubt. Lots of, you know, what am I doing? I did the only thing I knew how to do, get back to work.”
As for the hug with Holt, when he said he told his caddie he loved him?
“This is probably as emotional as I’ve been winning a golf tournament before, for sure,” Snedeker said. “I’ve been through so much since the last time this happened, so very grateful, very appreciative of it and try to take it all in.”
The remainder of Snedeker’s season will include presiding as the U.S. Presidents Cup Team Captain for the matches from Sept. 22-27 at Medinah Country Club in Illinois.
The win continues Snedeker’s success in the Carolinas.
He won the Wyndham in Greensboro, N.C., twice and the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head Island, where he was a regular on leaderboards for a decade-plus. Sunday’s win gives him what he’s calling ‘The South Carolina Double.’
“I kind of hope part of this deal is I get to become a member down here at this golf course, because this golf course is phenomenal. I love it,” Snedeker said. “South Carolina has been very good to me. I love coming down here. It’s kind of similar to how I grew up. Slow pace of lifestyle. People are fantastic. I’ve played some great golf here over the years and love coming down here.”
Other notable finishes
Beau Hossler and Kevin Roy tied for third at 16-under, Aaron Rai, the top-ranked player in the field at No. 42 in the world, finished fifth at 15-under, and Tom Kim was one of three players in a tie for sixth at 14-under.
Five-time major champion Brooks Koepka began the final round five shots off the lead in a tie for seventh following a 64 on Saturday and finished in a tie for 11th at 12-under with a final-round 70.
Koepka leaves Myrtle Beach ecstatic both with his ball-striking going into the PGA Championship, which he has won three times in 2018, 2019 and 2023, and his frame of mind.
“I feel like I’m striking it as good as I ever have, driving it as good as I ever have,” Koepka said. “If I can continue to do that, then I’m going to be very pleased where I’m at for a while.
“. . . I was very frustrated last year. Just wasn’t in a good place. I refound my happiness, my love for the game. All the pieces are connected. It’s just now I’ve got to go out and go play.”
Blades Brown, 18, shot a 67 Sunday to move into a tie for ninth at 13-under.
It’s Brown’s second top-10 of the season including a tie for third in the Puerto Rico Open in March, and he earned 42.5 FedExCup points to now be within 44 points of securing PGA Tour Special Temporary Membership, which will allow him to accept unlimited sponsor exemptions into tournaments for the remainder of the year.
He will get into the CJ Cup Byron Nelson based on his top 10 finish Sunday and still has two sponsor exemptions that he can accept as a non-member. Brown said he is playing in South Carolina again this upcoming week in the Colonial Life Charity Classic at The Woodcreek Club outside Columbia, a new Korn Ferry Tour tournament.
“Whatever happens, I’m going to be content,” Brown said. “I’m just so focused on becoming the best player that I can be. That’s what kind of helps me be able to handle all the stress and all the external factors whenever I’m playing golf.”
Brown has played in all three Myrtle Beach Classics and has previous finishes of 26th and 37th.
“Myrtle Beach is awesome. I would almost call this place home,” said Brown, who had one of the larger spectator followings all week, which included his parents and 83-year-old grandmother. “This is where it all started. This is where I played my first professional event as a 16-year-old, and it’s starting to feel like home, which is really cool.”
Ryan Ruffels, who won The Q Myrtle Beach for influencers and content creators to qualify for the Myrtle Beach Classic, tied for 45th at 5-under with rounds of 67, 70, 72 and 70.
