Adam Hadwin was in serious trouble Sunday afternoon.
He went to the 16th tee at Innisbrook with a two-shot lead at the Valspar with three holes to play.
All was well until he parked his tee shot way right off the tee and flat-out drowned his golf ball.
Even worse, he would leave himself in a place where bogey was virtually impossible.
As he left the green on the Snake Pit’s most difficult hurdle, he had blown all of the four-shot lead he started the final round with, Patrick Cantlay had caught him and the ghost of the 54-hole lead at the CareerBuilder was haunting Hadwin.
Innisbrook hasn’t been kind to 54-hole leaders at this event. Only two survived over the last nine years and Hadwin was looking like another victim.
Tied with Cantlay at 14-under, it stayed that way as they traded pars at 17 then both found the fairway at 18. This one had playoff written all over it.
Then came the gift, call it Hadwin’s wedding gift from the inexperienced Cantlay.
From 168 yards out in the fairway, Cantlay came out of a seven-iron shot and left it short and in the right greenside bunker. A horrible place for the kid who had converted only one of five sand save attempts on the day and gave Hadwin that two-shot lead when he botched a bunker shot at the par three 15th.
With Hadwin on the back of the green against the fringe, basically in decent shape, Cantlay fatted this bunker shot and left it nearly 16 feet short of the hole.
Hadwin hit a perfect belly-wedge to a foot and figured Cantlay might tie him. “I fully expected Patrick to make it,” Hadwin would say afterward. But that was not the case.
Cantlay gift-wrapped the Valspar and sent Hadwin on a post-wedding trip to The Masters.
“I don’t know what to say,” Hadwin said, obviously not believing the turn of events and the good fortune of having Cantly bogey the 18th.
“I just wanted a chance to win it going up 18. I thought it would take a birdie to win,” said Hadwin, who will tie the knot with fiancée Jessica on March 24. Even better, the couple will have to change their honeymoon plans. French Polynesia will have to yield to Augusta National.
This was a wild and dramatic afternoon on Florida’s west coast.
Hadwin was a putting fool all week, holing more than 400 feet of putts, including a 70-footer at the 13th that kept Cantlay at bay.
The 29-year-old Canadian, who shot 59 earlier this year, knew all too well how hard it is to win after giving up the 54-hole lead in Palm Springs last January, losing by a shot to Hudson Swafford.
He found out again that four shots nearly wasn’t enough. He needed help and got it.
But it wasn’t the end of the world for Cantlay. His solo second cut him a check for $680,400 and assured him that the medical exemption he has will remain in tact for the rest of this season. That money and the FedEx Cup points that go with it should put him well on his way to an easy entry into the top 125.
It was Hadwin who needed this win the most and it was Cantlay who helped him.
But at the end of the day, both were winners in their own respective ways.
