Jordan Spieth sank a 28-foot birdie putt on the third playoff hole to turn back Patrick Reed and Sean O’Hair, winning the Valspar Championship on the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Fla.
The 21-year-old Spieth, who joined Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia and Robert Gamez as the only players under 22 to win twice on the PGA Tour since 1940, posted a scrambling 2-under-par 69 and had to make a 12-foot par putt on the final hole of regulation to get into the playoff.
“It was crazy on the back nine, being three down with six holes to play,” said Spieth, whose other PGA Tour victory came in the 2013 John Deere Classic. “The Snake Pit is not going to give you very many birdies. I was scrambling coming in and made some great par saves.
“That (winning putt) was just luck. I would have had a four-foot slider coming back had it missed. I guess it was just my day.”
Spieth holed a bunker shot on the final hole of regulation to get into the John Deere playoff two years ago, and then beat Zach Johnson and David Hearn of Canada with a par on the fourth extra hole.
Then Reed earned his first PGA Tour victory by beating Spieth with a birdie on the second playoff hole in the Wyndham Championship later in the year.
Reed, bidding for his fifth PGA Tour victory in about 17 months, did not make a bogey over his last 28 holes and sank a 31-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole to close out a brilliant 66.
O’Hair, who has won four times on the PGA Tour but not since the 2011 RBC Canadian Open, finished with a 67 that included four birdies on the back nine and holed a five-foot par putt on the last hole to earn his spot in the playoff.
Henrik Stenson of Sweden closed with a 67 that included three straight birdies through No. 16, but missed a 12-foot birdie putt on No. 17 that would have gotten him into the playoff and he finished one stroke back in solo third.
Third-round leader Ryan Moore, who held a three-stroke lead after holing his second shot from 172 yards for an eagle on the sixth hole, made four bogeys on the back nine in a 72 that left him two shots back in fifth, followed another stroke back by Troy Merritt, who had a 66.
