The Canadian team of Adam Hadwin and Nick Taylor had the round of the day at the Zurich Classic on Sunday, carding a 63 to charge into contention and finish second behind the winning team of Nick Hardy and Davis Riley.
The score tied Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele’s tournament record for alternate shot play.
Hadwin and Taylor birdied 10 of the first 13 holes to pull into the outright lead at 28-under. But they failed to capitalize on their momentum down the stretch, settling for par on the final five holes.
Hadwin and Taylor split $1,014,800 in prize money.
"Our alternate shot was actually better than our best ball this week, which is pretty interesting," Taylor said. "We knew we had to shoot a really good round to even sniff the lead. It was obviously a really fun day."
The second-place finish was the best for either player since Taylor’s runner-up finish at the Phoenix Open in February. It was Hadwin's best finish since he placed second at the Safeway Open in 2019.
All things considered, it was quite a day for the former roommates, who grew up near each other in British Columbia, Canada.
"We picked who would go odds and evens about perfectly today," Hadwin said of the team's alternate shot game plan. "I drove it pretty well. His irons were great today, gave me a lot of looks, and I had a great feel for the greens. ... Just really good team partner golf today, and to kind of end like that is pretty special."
Reigning champs come up short
Cantlay and Schauffele made a brief charge on the back nine to get to 27-under but bogeyed No. 18 to finish four strokes back of the leaders. They tied with the team of Taylor Moore and Matthew NeSmith for fourth place.
After three consecutive weeks on tour, both players said they are looking forward to the week off next weekend.
“We never really picked each other up when we needed to throughout the week, and it kind of just dragged out,” Schauffele said. “Overall, we're both playing pretty close. We're both pretty tired after a long stretch here. Just looking forward to a break and recharging.”
Ugly finish
Taylor Montgomery and Kurt Kitayama carded a nightmarish quadruple bogey on the 561-yard, par-5 No. 18.
The duo was sailing along at 4-under par for the round when Montgomery found the water on his tee shot. Kitayama then lost his ball to the left of the fairway on his provisional tee shot. It took the duo three more shots to reach the green, where they two-putted from 14 feet to finish at even on the day and 19-under for the tournament.
Another big crowd
The crowd for the final round on Sunday was slightly smaller than the record-setting turnout on Saturday. Tournament officials estimated an attendance of about 29,000 fans, down from the estimated crowd of 33,000 to 35,000 for the third day.
Overall, the tournament enjoyed strong attendance throughout the four days of competition, said Steve Worthy, the CEO of the Fore!Kids Foundation, which operates the tournament.
"We haven't seen the final numbers yet, but it was definitely one of the best attended tournaments we've had," Worthy said.
We’re in the money
With a total purse of $8.6 million — a record for a New Orleans PGA Tour event — each member of the winning team pocketed $1,242,700 on Sunday.
The $1.274 million payout per man was more than the entire purse of the 1996 tournament here. That year, champion Scott McCarron took home $216,000.
Looking ahead to 2024
The tentative date for next year’s Zurich Classic is April 25-28, 2024. The official dates will be released later this year. If the schedule goes as planned, the tournament will once again overlap with the NFL draft (April 25-27) and the first weekend of Jazz Fest.