While Matt Fitzpatrick celebrated a birdie on the 72nd hole won the championship for Valspartwo players were processing Sunday’s various mistakes as they prepared to leave Innisbrook Resort.
One was spoiling what could have been one of his last best shots. The other hoped that one loss might be the key to what comes next.
HAD President Cup Captain Brandt Snedeker, who went into the final group along with 54-hole leader Sungjae Im. Snedeker, 45, is a nine-time winner on the PGA Tour, but his last win came at the 2018 Wyndham Championship, when he opened with a 59. Since then, Snedeker has been on a roll. In 2022, he underwent experimental surgery to fix a joint in his sternum that was separating. It took him eight months to return to competition. While his health is the “best” it’s been in a decade, Snedeker has struggled on the course, posting just three top-10s in 62 events over the past three years.
But in The ValsparsSnedeker came through with a short, neat game in contention, giving him a chance to return to the winner’s circle for the first time in almost eight years.
“No one expects me to be here,” Snedeker said Saturday.
He entered Sunday with a chance. By the time Snedeker made the turn, Im had shot a front-nine 40 and Snedeker found himself in a five-way tie for first.
It was everything to Snedeker. And then, suddenly, it wasn’t.
Snedeker missed macabre birdie efforts at 10 and 11, and then made a messy double on the par-4 12. Bogeys at 13, 16 and 17 followed as Snedeker chipped in to finish in a tie for the 18th.
“Stayed on the 10th ball tied for the lead, which is all you can do,” Snedeker said after the round. “My swing left me on the back nine. I really struggled. I couldn’t find anything to go to to put the ball where I wanted. This golf course — it’s a perfectly designed golf course — if you get out of position, it’s going to punish you. All those putts I’ve been making all week dried up today.
“It’s frustrating, it’s bad and all the good stuff this week seems like I threw it away today. But that’s part of golf. That’s why I enjoy this challenge and I’ll come back next week and try to figure out what I did wrong and try to fix it.”
Snedeker began the year with conditional status and opened with four straight missed tackles. For 63 holes at Valspar, he had a chance to write an unlikely story. Instead, he limped to the finish and left the Copperhead Course hoping it was a sign of things to come and not an isolated flash of good play.
“I was really happy with my process today,” Snedeker said. “I never felt nervous, I never felt like I was uncomfortable with the situations I was in. I feel like my swing was a little loose. This golf course can really make you pay. It’s not like I hit any wild, terrible shots, just a slow flow. I miss a fairway here, miss a green there, and I put the ball in the wrong spot and you Nine got hung up on the front nine.
While Snedker was ending a slow bleed after nine, David Lipsky was in front pushing Fitzpatrick to the limit.
The 37-year-old Lipsky has never won on the PGA Tour and is currently playing with conditional status after finishing 107th in the FedEx Cup fall standings. He arrived at Valspar with a top-20 in four starts this season, but Lipsky opened with rounds of 69-65-70 to start the final round tied with Snedeker, just two off Im’s lead.
Lipsky broke even and then went 14 to join Fitzpatrick atop the leaderboard at 10 under. He missed a birdie putt on No. 15 and then watched his 15-foot birdie attempt at 17. When Fitzpatrick was 18 ahead of him, Lipsky had to answer on the final hole to force a playoff. But his shot landed on the right side and his approach left him 32 feet for birdie. Lipsky gave it a run, but his attempt to force a playoff just missed, leaving him with a runner-up finish.
Sunday at Valspar could have changed everything for David Lipsky. But the near lady did not leave him with pity or disappointment; all that was there on Sunday was excitement for what was to come. That single second finish moves him to the top of the AON Swing Five, meaning he’s on track to enter the RBC Heritage, the next Signature Event. That could open everything up for a major still looking for opportunities to play on the PGA Tour and hopes to break out of the moribund land he currently resides in.
“Massive,” Lipsky said of his week. “It’s probably going to get me into some of the Signature Events or not. It’s a great week. I don’t have any notes on that.
“It gets you into a lot of other events. You don’t feel like you’re behind the 8-ball, especially going into the summer. So this week was a great week and I’m looking forward to seeing what events I get into the rest of the year and trying to play my way into those playoffs.”
Lipsky will head to Houston this week, looking to bolster his chances of kicking the door on a Signature Event. Snedeker, meanwhile, will continue to “split” his focus between his duties as President’s Cup captain and as a nine-time PGA Tour winner looking for a late-career resurgence.
His Valspar may well be the start of that. But there’s one thing it won’t be: starting a conversation that mirrors what Keegan Bradley experienced last year as he tried to play himself into his Ryder Cup team. Snedeker will be in Medina in September as captain and only captain. His golf will be secondary until the last shot is dropped this fall.
“There’s no chance,” Snedeker said Thursday of the possibility of being a captain. “Let’s not talk about madness here, there is no chance, there is no possibility.
;)
