Chris Gotterup was on a roll when his fourth round at the WM Phoenix Open concluded Sunday. About an hour later, he picked up where he left off.<\/p>\n
Gotterup posted a birdie on the first playoff hole after late mishaps by Hideki Matsuyama opened the door for him to win at TPC Scottsdale\u2019s Stadium Course in Arizona.<\/p>\n
Gotterup, 26, notched his second victory of 2026 and the fourth of his young career. He shot a 7-under-par 64 and waited for a chance in a playoff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just figured I\u2019d stay loose,\u201d Gotterup said. \u201cI didn\u2019t think this would happen, especially after Friday (71) and \u200bSaturday (70). But here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gotterup and Matsuyama ended up at 16-under 268 on a day when world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler made \u200da strong \u2060move toward the top and created considerable buzz.<\/p>\n
Gotterup has won three tour events in less than a \u200dseven-month span. This was his first time in a playoff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m having such a good time playing right now,\u201d Gotterup said. \u201cJust so awesome. … There\u2019s just so many people who believe in me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gotterup, who also won last month\u2019s season-opening Sony Open in Hawaii, posted birdies on five of the final six holes in the last round. The last of those came after he recovered from a wayward tee shot.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew I had to make \u200dbirdie on 18, but you never know,\u201d Gotterup said. \u201cHideki was playing great.\u201d<\/p>\n
To end the fourth round, Matsuyama\u2019s erratic driving finally cost him.<\/p>\n
His tee shot on the 18th hole ended up in a bunker and his quest to scramble for par failed when he was off the mark \u200con a 24-foot putt. He took his lone bogey of the round.<\/p>\n
Then Matsuyama\u2019s tee shot on the playoff hole landed in the water alongside the fairway. Gotterup played it steady and recorded another birdie \u200bto seal the deal.<\/p>\n
Two of Matsuyama\u2019s \u200c11 victories on the PGA Tour have come in this tournament. He also won in \u200c2016 and 2017, but he couldn\u2019t finish the quest this time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWas grinding all weekend,\u201d Matsuyama said through a \u200btranslator. \u201cDidn\u2019t have my best \u200cstuff, but hung in there. I wanted to avoid the playoff as much as I could, but I just hit a bad tee shot there in regulation at 18, and Chris made a good putt there in the playoff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matsuyama carried a 1-shot lead on countryman Ryo Hisatsune into the final round.<\/p>\n
Matsuyama was trying to win his fourth PGA Tour event in a 24-month period. This marked the sixth time Matsuyama has been the outright leader through 54 holes on the PGA Tour, and he had won each of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris Gotterup was on a roll when his fourth round at the WM Phoenix Open concluded Sunday. About…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[1479,1511,2588,208],"class_list":["post-26288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hideki-matsuyama","tag-chris-gotterup","tag-hideki-matsuyama","tag-phoenix-open","tag-scottie-scheffler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}