SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Being in contention had always sent Thomas Detry into fast-forward on the golf course. His heart raced and his mind looked ahead instead of focusing on the moment.
Knowing what was at stake, the 32-year-old from Belgium took steps to calm his nerves by meditating and taking an ice bath before each of his final two rounds over the weekend at raucous TPC Scottsdale.
It paid off with his first PGA Tour victory.
Calm throughout his final 18 holes, Detry nearly aced the rowdy 16th in a stretch of four closing birdies, shooting a 6-under-par 65 on Sunday to win the Phoenix Open by seven shots.
“Today I paid more attention,” Detry said. “Yesterday morning, I actually felt pretty comfortable and I did the exact same routine, and I actually felt comfortable on the first tee. I really didn’t have any nerves.”
A year after soggy conditions led to multiple delays, perfect weather greeted players at the jam-packed Stadium Course. The fans also were on their best behavior — as much as they can be at the PGA Tour’s wildest stop — after a mayhem-filled 2024 tournament.
Detry took advantage of the ideal conditions and navigated the noise to enter the final round with a five-shot lead. Top-ranked Scottie Scheffler, three-time major champion Jordan Spieth and four-time tour winner Daniel Berger all made charges, but Detry hit it to 16 inches on 16 to essentially seal his first win in 68 PGA Tour starts.
Detry added two more birdies to finish the 72-hole event at 24-under 260, becoming the first Belgian to win on the tour.
“I tried to just do my best to put pressure on him, but every time I felt like I made a birdie, he made one back,” Berger said. “He was playing really great golf today, and he was deserving to win this.”
Berger tied for second with Michael Kim at 17 under after each closed with a 67. Spieth, playing his second tournament since wrist surgery last summer, closed with a 68 to finish at 16 under and tie for fourth with South Africa’s Christiaan Bezuidenhout (66).
“All in all, it was a big progress week for me,” Spieth said. “I didn’t feel like this was a one-off. It felt like this is just trending the right direction.”
Two-time PGA Championship winner Justin Thomas holed out from 103 yards for an eagle on 18 to shoot 65 and finish at 15 under.
“I felt like I played a lot of great golf and did a lot of really good things this week — and I feel like we kind of deserved that,” Thomas said.
Thomas shared sixth place with Will Chandler (66) and Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre (67).
Chattanooga native Keith Mitchell (69) tied for 25th at 9 under, while fellow Baylor School graduate Luke List (70) shared 36th place at 7 under. List had an eagle on the par-5 13th hole.
AP photo by Ross D. Franklin / Thomas Detry, hits out of a bunker at the second hole of the Stadium Course at TPC Scottsdale during the final round of the PGA Tour’s Phoenix Open on Sunday.Meanwhile, Detry got the moment he’d long been waiting for.
He won the Bridgestone Challenge on the European circuit in 2016, twice represented his country at the Olympics, and had two runner-up finishes on the PGA Tour, most recently at the 2024 Houston Open. All that was missing was a PGA Tour triumph.
Detry put himself in position with stellar ball-striking and putting in the desert. He entered the final round at 18 under and wasted no time adding to his lead, dropping a 12-foot birdie putt on No. 1. He couldn’t get up and down from a greenside bunker on the par-4 second, but bounced back with a birdie on the par-5 third.
He shot a 1-under 34 on the front nine and still had a four-shot lead heading to the back. He reached 20 under with a birdie on the hardest hole on the course, the 470-yard, par-4 11th, and added a two-putt birdie on 15 before almost acing 16.
Detry got up and down for birdie on the short par-4 17th and closed out in style, sinking a nine-foot birdie putt.
“This course, there are birdies out there, but once you start missing fairways, those tricky pin positions and the firm greens, the course can bite you,” Detry said. “So I was able to trust my game and kind of rely on that.”
AP file photo by Matt Rourke / Yealimi Noh was the winner Sunday at the Founders Cup, her first LPGA Tour victory in 111 career starts.Stellar on back nine
BRADENTON, Fla. — Yealimi Noh turned a one-shot deficit into a three-shot lead over Jin Young Ko in the span of two holes on the back nine and cruised from there to her first LPGA Tour victory in the Founders Cup.
The 23-year-old from Northern California closed with a bogey-free, 3-under 68 for a 72-hole total of 21-under 263 at Bradenton Country Club, four shots better than South Korea’s Ko (71). Noh made her last bogey of the week on her final hole of Friday’s second round, then surged into the lead Saturday with a 63.
Noh was making her 111th career start and the first of her sixth season on tour.
“I always knew it would happen and it was a matter of time,” Noh said. “I was like, ‘When and why isn’t it coming?’ A lot of my peers and like girls around my age and just coming in at the same time getting their wins, I always was like, ‘I know I can do it, but when is it coming?’
“To really get it done, and especially in the first tournament of the year, is really nice.”
She made 10 straight pars, allowing Ko to edge in front, but holed birdie putts of close to 15 feet on the par-4 13th hole and 12 feet on the par-4 14th while Ko made bogey on each, her first bogeys of the week.
Ko, whose 15 career wins include two major championships, said she was more upset about ending her bogey-free streak of 95 holes than finishing second. The run dated to last weekend in the third round of the Tournament of Champions.
American player Megan Khang (68) was another shot back, while Australia’s Hannah Green (70), South Korea’s Jin Hee Im (71) and Japan’s Miyu Yamashita (69) tied for fourth at 13 under.
AP file photo by Kamran Jebreili / Li Haotong won the DP World Tour’s Qatar Masters by closing with a birdie Sunday to post a one-stroke victory.Birdie at best time
DOHA, Qatar — China’s Li Haotong holed a birdie putt from 15 feet at the last hole to secure a one-shot win at the DP World Tour’s Qatar Masters, the 29-year-old’s fourth victory on the Europe-based circuit.
Haotong, No. 300 in the most recent Official World Golf Ranking, let out a loud roar, pumped both fists and wept in the arms of his caddie after his winning putt at Doha Golf Club. The clutch shot denied Denmark’s Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen a playoff.
Li, the 54-hole leader, closed with a 3-under 69 to finish at 16-under 272, while Neergaard-Petersen’s 65 was good for sole possession of second place, two shots clear of England’s Brandon Robinson Thompson (70).
“I never thought I could come back in this position,” said Li, who hadn’t won since June 2022 at the BMW International Open. “This morning, I was really stressed.”
Eagle gets it done
RABAT, Morocco — Aided by his eagle on the par-4 17th hole, Miguel Angel Jimenez closed with a 4-under 69 at Royal Golf Dar Es Salam and won the Trophy Hassan II on Saturday, the 14th PGA Tour Champions victory of the 61-year-old Spaniard’s career.
Playing in the same group with Steven Alker, he made his key shot on the same hole where the New Zealander had to settle for par. Each followed with a par on No. 18, and Alker’s 71 left him two shots behind Jimenez, who completed the 54-hole event at 11-under 208. That set the tournament’s scoring record to par.
Alker had held at least a share of the lead after the first two rounds of the tournament, the second of the year for the 50-and-older tour.
South Africa’s Ernie Els, coming off a win two weeks ago in Hawaii at the season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai, matched Jimenez for the low round of the day. Els finished third at 7 under.
Meronk closes it out
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Adrian Meronk won the LIV Golf League’s first-ever event under the lights Saturday night, shooting a 1-under 71 to complete a wire-to-wire victory in the season-opening Riyadh tournament.
Meronk, a 31-year-old from Poland who played college golf at East Tennessee State, finished the 54-hole tournament at 17-under 199 after opening with rounds of 62 and 66 at Riyadh Golf Club. He was a four-time winner on the European circuit before moving to LIV last year, with Saturday’s win his first on the Saudi-funded tour.
Two-time major winner Jon Rahm of Spain and Colombia’s Sebastian Munoz each closed with a 67 as they tied for second at 15 under. Rahm’s Legion XIII won the team title at 50-under, 11 strokes ahead of runner-up Ripper.