CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Two years after Max Homa played only one Sunday in an entire PGA Tour season, he showed his mettle at Quail Hollow by closing with a 4-under 67 to pull away from the field and win the Wells Fargo Championship.
Homa began the back nine with two birdies to build a four-shot lead and didn’t make any mistakes until it only affected the final margin.
Joel Dahmen saved par with a tough chip over the creek for a 70 and finished three shots behind.
Homa, who won the NCAA title at Cal in 2013, won for the first time in his 68th start as a pro. The victory gets him into the PGA Championship in two weeks at Bethpage Black and the Masters next April.
But what a turnaround for the 28-year-old Californian.
Homa was at No. 829 in the world when he got his third crack at the PGA Tour in October. Two seasons ago, he made only two cuts in 17 tournaments, missing the 54-hole cut in one of them and finishing last at an opposite-field event in the other.
But he made six of seven cuts coming into Quail Hollow, and played like he belonged.
“Confidence takes a lot of anxiety away,” he said Saturday night as he prepared to play in the final group for the first time.
Homa never flinched, effectively sealing it with a long shot up the hill and onto the green at the par-5 15th for a two-putt birdie, saving par to keep a three-shot lead going to the final hole and drilling his tee shot down the fairway. He wrapped it up with a 10-foot par putt to finish at 15-under 269.
“Over the moon, man,” he said before going to sign his card. “It means a lot to do it under pressure, and job security is great. I haven’t had that.”
The victory was worth $1,422,000 — about $454,000 more than he had made in his previous 67 starts — and gives him a two-year exemption, along with a tee time at Bethpage Black in two weeks. The only other major Homa played was the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion, a month after his NCAA title.
Dahmen held his own until costly bogeys around the turn. But that chip was on the 18th for par to finish alone in second meant a difference of $158,000.
“I didn’t beat myself today, which was kind of the goal,” Dahmen said. “Max is playing awesome. He’s a good friend. I think we’re going to celebrate tonight.”
Justin Rose (68) finished alone in third and moved ahead of Brooks Koepka to No. 2 in the world.
Rory McIlroy was primed to join Tom Weiskopf as the only three-time winners at Quail Hollow, starting the final round two shots behind. He never got anything going until it went the wrong way. He turned a 20-foot eagle attempt into a three-putt par on the par-5 seventh, failed to get up-and-down on the reachable eighth for a birdie, and then went bogey-double bogey around the turn to take himself out of the mix.
No one else was much of a threat either, just two guys who had never come remotely close to winning on the PGA Tour.
Former PGA champion Jason Dufner, part of the three-way tie for the lead to start the final round, made consecutive bogeys early and had no bearing on the final round. A double bogey on the 18th gave him a 73 and dropped him into a tie for fourth.
Rose pulled within two shots with a birdie on the par-5 10th, only to settle into a series of pars. By the time Sergio Garcia reached double digits under par, Homa was well on his way.
Homa and Dahmen were at 13 under until Dahmen blinked first. He found a fairway bunker on No. 9, couldn’t get to the green and made bogey, and then missed a 12-foot birdie chance on the 10th. Homa, playing behind him in the final group, holed a 15-foot birdie putt on the 10th for a two-shot lead, made birdie from the left rough on the 11th with a 12-foot putt and escaped more trouble off the tee on the 12th with a two-putt from 80 feet.
“Well done,” his caddie, Joe Greiner, told him when he hit a solid 6-footer to complete the par.
After a one-hour delay from storms, Homa returned to hole a 6-foot par putt on the 14th and was steady down the stretch, just as he had been all day.
Homa became the fifth player to make Quail Hollow his first PGA Tour victory, joining Anthony Kim (2008), McIlroy (2010), Rickie Fowler (2012) and Derek Ernst (2013).
PGA TOUR CHAMPIONS
THE WOODLANDS, Texas — Scott McCarron won the Insperity Invitational for his 10th PGA Tour Champions victory and second in three weeks.
The 53-year-old McCarron held off Scott Parel by two strokes, closing with a 5-under 67 to finish at 17-under 199 and match Fred Couples (2010) for the best score since the event moved to The Woodlands Country Club in 2008.
McCarron won the Mitsubishi Electric Classic two weeks ago in Georgia, then teamed with Brandt Jobe to tie for fifth last week in Missouri in the Bass Pro Shops Legends of Golf . The former UCLA player who won three times on the PGA Tour.
Parel shot a 66. He also finished second last month in Mississippi, losing to Kevin Sutherland on the seventh hole of a playoff.
After Parel birdied the par-5 15th to pull within a stroke, McCarron hit a 6-iron to a foot for birdie on the par-3 16th to push the advantage back to two shots. Parel missed a chance to pull within one on the par-4 17th when his 3-foot birdie putt caught the left edge and lipped out.
Both players parred the par-4 18th, with Parel forced to scramble after driving well left off a cart path and nearly into a garbage basket.
McCarron took a three-stroke lead into the final round, overcoming a stiff neck to shoot 67-65 in a 34 1/2-hole Saturday after most of the play Friday was wiped out because of lightning and heavy rain.
EUROPEAN TOUR
SHENZHEN, China — Mikko Korhonen of Finland overcame a three-shot deficit with a 6-under 66 and beat Benjamin Hebert in a playoff with an 8-foot birdie putt in the Volvo China Open.
The victory moves Korhonen into the top 100 in the world and is likely to earn another trip to the PGA Championship in New York.
Two shots behind at the turn, Korhonen birdied two straight holes to catch Hebert, and Hebert had to birdie the last at Genzon Golf Club for a 69 to force the playoff. They finished at 20-under 268.
Korhonen won for the second straight year on the European Tour. He won last year at the Shot Clock Masters.
Jorge Campillo of Spain, coming off a victory last week in Morocco, shot a 67 and missed the playoff by one shot.
China’s Kuang Yang closed with a 73 to tie for 55th. He was the second-youngest player (14 years, 6 months, 12 days) to make the cut in in a European Tour event. The record belongs to Guan Tianglang, who was a month younger when he made the cut in the 2013 Masters.
LPGA Tour
DALY CITY, Calif. — Sei Young Kim overcame a rough start to win the LPGA MEDIHEAL Championship at cold and windy Lake Merced, outlasting Bronte Law and Jeongeun Lee6 with a birdie on the first hole of a playoff.
Three strokes ahead entering the day, Kim opened with a double bogey and a bogey and dropped another stroke on No. 8. The 26-year-old South Korean birdied the par-5 15th to regain a share of the lead, dropped back with a bogey on the par-3 17th and birdied the par-5 18th for a 3-over 75 and a spot in the playoff at 7-under 281.
Law closed with a 65, finishing more than two hours before Kim, and Lee6 had a 67.
Kim won for the eighth time on the LPGA Tour, improving to 4-0 in playoffs. She nearly retraced her regulation path on the 18th in the playoff, almost driving into her own divot and hitting another 4-iron from 199 yards a foot closer than before onto the front right fringe.
Law left her approach short and right and pitched to 6 feet. Lee6’s approach bounced into the middle of the green, leaving her a 40-foot eagle putt that she hit 6 feet past. After Kim putted to 2 feet, Law missed her birdie putt to the right, and Lee6’s try went left. Kim then ended it.
Law, the 24-year-old former UCLA star from England, missed a chance to tie the LPGA Tour record for the largest comeback at 10 strokes. She made five birdies in a six-hole stretch in the middle of the round and reached 7 under with a 4-wood to 4 feet for eagle on No. 15.