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PHOENIX – The PGA TOUR Champions season will last at least one more day.
The final round of the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship will be played on Monday, after Kevin Sutherland and Paul Broadhurst swapped pars through six playoff holes in near darkness.
Broadhurst played a superb final round on Sunday, clearing a six-shot deficit with a no-bogey 63 in the season finale for the PGA TOUR Champions, who won’t crown a champion until next year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Sutherland stumbled early in the round to lose a five-shot lead overnight over Wes Short Jr., but finished with a birdie on the par-5 18 hole to shoot a 2-under 69.
Broadhurst and Sutherland closed at 15 below 198.
After all those little birds, neither of them could drop anything in the playoffs.
Trading missed birdie putts as the sun raced towards the horizon, Sutherland and Broadhurst continued to agree to continue playing, not wanting the tournament to continue until Monday.
They eventually decided to call him when Broadhurst missed an 8 foot birdie putt at No. 18 and Sutherland fell to a 4-footer for par.
It was simply too dark.
Many have happened before the sun went down.
Sutherland, who once shot 59 in the PGA TOUR Champions, opened on Friday with a 6-under 65 in favorable conditions and was even better when the wind picked up on Saturday, turning a 64 as the scores around him soared.
On a cold Sunday, Sutherland was unable to take advantage of the good conditions to score early, allowing the field to get closer. He opened with five pars in a row and a bogey on the sixth par-4 of 460 yards took him to 12 under.
Broadhurst has taken a unique approach to putting, looking at the hole rather than the ball as he executes his stroke.
It certainly worked early as he punched putt after putt.
Playing in the group ahead of Sutherland, Broadhurst had five birdies in the first eight holes to equalize for the lead. A long par-3 eighth hole birdie led him to a draw with Sutherland, but a short birdie putt pulled on No. 9 cost him a blow to the head.
Sutherland made his first birdie by falling into a 4-foot putt on the long par-4 10th to regain the lead.
Broadhurst made a short birdie putt at par-3 13th to tie him up again, then made another birdie at number 16 for the lead.
Sutherland poured a birdie putt from a similar length right behind him, tying it to 15 below.
Broadhurst wasn’t finished.
He hit his tee shot on No. 17 left in the rough, but hit a shot under tree branches at about 12 feet. Broadhurst pumped his first when the ball stopped and birdie putted to go back a shot.
Not even Sutherland was done.
He had to lie down from a bunker on the fairway at no. 18 and looked away in disgust as his third shot fell to the left. He did the putt, though, and got an excited reaction from him after forcing the playoffs.
Then came the missed putts and the darkness.
Now the finish line won’t come until Monday.
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