By Jeremy Harness
NAPA – After missing a three-foot putt, it is very tough to come back and re-focus in a short period of time. But that’s exactly what Emiliano Grillo needed to do for his first PGA Tour win on Sunday.
The 23-year-old Argentine came back from two strokes behind – as well as the aforementioned short-putt miscue on the first playoff hole – and beat Kevin Na on the second playoff hole to win the Frys.com Open at Silverado, the opening event of the 2015-16 PGA Tour season, with only a half-hour of daylight to spare.
“There are no words to explain this,” said Grillo, who became a member of the tour five weeks ago with a win in the Web.com Tour finals. “This is the greatest moment of my life golf-wise. It’s been an incredible journey in the last five weeks.”
He was in perfect position to win it on the first playoff hole, after stuffing his pitch shot to three feet while Na was faced with a daunting 50-footer. However, he missed the short putt to give Na, who two-putted for par, a reprieve.
“I hit a perfect putt; I don’t know why it didn’t go in,” Grillo said. “My caddie asked me (if I was) 100 percent, and I said yes. I want to win it.”
Na, meanwhile, failed to capitalize on the second playoff hole. After finding the fairway, he chose to hit his driver from the short grass – the biggest risk-reward shot as there is in golf – and ended up mis-hitting the shot and hooking it behind a tree, leaving him an almost-impossible up-and-down for birdie, which he did not convert.
Grillo took advantage of Na’s mistake and hit his approach shot to about four feet. This time, however, he drained the putt to take the title.
“I hit probably five or six drivers off the deck this week, and I hit it perfect every time,” said Na, who missed his opportunity to collect his second PGA Tour win. “The driver is the only club that’s going to get me far enough right, past the front, where I can have an aim to win.
“The only thing is it was dark, and the ball was above my feet.”
The victory capped off a crazy day at the top of the leaderboard. As Grillo got to the 18th-hole, there was a five-way tie for the lead at 14-under par, but he broke that deadlock by draining a 45-footer for birdie. Na, who played directly behind Grillo and saw the brief celebration, then responded by getting up and down for his own birdie to set up the two-man playoff.
At the start of the day, there were 11 players within two shots of the lead, and by the time the final pairing of Brendan Steele and Andrew Loupe reached the turn, the logjam that was the top of the leaderboard got even more crowded.
Grillo, playing two groups ahead of the leaders, picked up three shots in the first six holes to vault into the lead at 15-under. However, he dropped a shot at the par-5 ninth but got it right back at the 10th before offsetting two bogeys with a pair of birdies, including the bomb at the 18th to put him in the playoff.
Meanwhile, Justin Thomas, who was three strokes back going into Sunday, made a climb of his own and closed to 14-under and almost made a 40-footer at the 18th that would have put him in the playoff with Grillo and Na.
Tyrone Van Asweg started the day four shots back and almost was not able to play due to what was later diagnosed as severe dehydration and vertigo that morning. He was taken to the hospital and was in the emergency room an hour before his scheduled tee time.
“Thank goodness there was a slight fog delay, and that gave me an extra 20 minutes to get here, (put) clothes on, try and get some food, and (get) on the practice tee,” Van Asweg said.
Despite all of that, he didn’t seem to miss a beat once he put a club in his hands. He roared right into the mix with a four-under 68, a round which saw him pick up two shots on the front nine and two more on the back, including a birdie at the par-5 18th to finish at 14-under.
The leader heading into Sunday was Steele, who bogeyed the third and fourth holes but got both of those shots right back when he chipped in for eagle at the par-5 fifth. He then birdied the 10th hole to grab a one-shot lead.
That would not last long, however. His tee shots, which had regularly found the fairway throughout the week, began to go wayward and ended up costing him. Errant drives on holes 12 and 13 resulted in bogeys that dropped him to a stroke off the lead.
It only got worse for Steele, who never regained his momentum and ended up finishing with a four-over 76. This has been a common theme for Steele, who averaged a score of 71.26 in the final round last season.
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