By Jeremy Harness

PEBBLE BEACH – Brandt Snedeker is a very simple guy and has a simple golf game to go along with it. Take the $25 putter he has been using for the past few years, for instance.

Turns out that on a challenging, majestic course like Pebble Beach, simple worked out just fine for him.

Using a nice touch around the greens as well as his familiar short, popping putting stroke that allowed him to roll in more than his share of birdie putts throughout the weekend, Snedeker blew past the field en route to his second AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am title in three years by a three-stroke margin.

Snedeker, who had only three top-10 finishes all of last season, shot a bogey-free 67 and only had to write down one bogey on his card the entire tournament. In the process, Snedeker punched his own ticket to this year’s Masters with the victory.

“This win means a lot more than the last one did (in 2013) because of everything I’d gone through in the last year and a half,” said Snedeker, who started working with new instructor Butch Harmon shortly after last year’s U.S Open.

His closest competitors were not as consistent, particularly down the stretch. Jim Furyk began Sunday with a one-stroke advantage over Snedeker, Nick Watney and Matt Jones following a blistering 63 in the third round. Unlike Saturday’s round that saw him roll in putt after putt, however, he could not get on track in the final round.

Even though he put himself in good positions with his ball striking, his putts simply did not find the hole like Snedeker’s, and as a result, he ended up gradually falling out of contention as the round went along.

“I couldn’t have hit two better shots at (all of the first three holes), but I couldn’t make any of the putts,” said Furyk, who added that frustration built as the round went along, as he continued to hit good shots but could not capitalize with the putter. “It started snowballing on me.”

In the early going, Furyk was patient, but while that was going on, Watney had a white-hot start to his final round. He birdied the first four holes, and at that point, he was ahead by a pair of shots while consistently finding the fairway.

However, he soon cooled off a bit as his driving accuracy faded. He dropped a shot on each of the next two holes, including the par-5 sixth hole that saw him get too aggressive with his second shot and wound up in the hazard, resulting in a one-stroke penalty.

“Probably (the) worst swing of the week,” Watney said. “(I) just wasn’t as committed as I needed to be.”

From there, it was a Jekyll-and-Hyde round for Watney, as he traded two birdies for a pair of bogeys for the next seven holes. Then he got to the par-5 14th, where he hit his tee shot into the fairway bunker and was forced to lay up.

He then hit his approach shot left of the green and ended up chipping onto the green twice, after his first chip didn’t make it up the slope and rolled back into the rough, resulting in another bogey to drop him four shots back.

Watney was able to retrieve his game a bit after that, making birdie on the last two holes, but by that time, it was too late, as Snedeker did not give Watney – or anyone else – a chance to catch up.

“He didn’t really show a weakness,” Watney said of Snedeker. “There’s not much to not like about today. He played really well. He made the putts that you would expect him to make, and he got the ‘W.’”