No. 16 Sinks Hoge to 3rd; Kizzire Wins Sony in Playoff

National

HONOLULU, Hawaii -- Basically, Tom Hoge hit three bad shots on Sunday. Two of them were consecutive, on the 16th hole, and they led to a double bogey. 

That plus a pair of missed 9-foot birdie putts on the last two holes prevented the former two-time Minnesota State Amateur champion from winning the Sony Open in Hawaii. He wound up having to settle for third place -- and $421,600. The check was a nice consolation. Nevertheless, if Hoge had been able to par the 16th hole, he would have claimed his first PGA Tour victory and an additional $694,400.

His misfortune on the 70th hole of the tournament presented Patton Kizzire and James Hahn with an opportunity. They tied for first, played off and eventually Kizzire emerged as the winner -- after six extra holes.

The playoff finally ended when Hahn missed the 183-yard, par-3 17th hole and failed to save his par. Kizzire won with a routine two-putt par. 

Kizzire is a 31-year-old former Auburn All-American who claimed his first PGA Tour title last fall at the OHL Classic in Mexico. On Sunday, he closed with a 2-under-par 68, which gave him a 72-hole total of 263 (17 under). His first-place check was for $1,116,000. As a result, he is now No. 1 on the money list with $2,903,872 in seven events.  

Hahn began the day seven strokes behind Hoge, the 54-hole leader, but he made seven birdies in an eight-hole stretch (8 through 15) and posted a 62 -- the low round of the tournament -- nearly an hour before the final threesome of Hoge, Kizzire and Brian Harman finished. 

As Hahn was signing his scorecard, Hoge was 2 under for his round, 18 under for the tournament, and the leader by a stroke. A few minutes later, he hit a 270-yard tee shot into the middle of the fairway at No. 16 (417 yards, par 4). The 28-year-old from Fargo had missed only one green in regulation in the first 15 holes. (He ended up hitting 16 of 18 greens.) That one miss had been the result of a pull-hooked iron shot from 150 yards at the eighth hole. Now he had another 150-yard approach, and he pull-hooked this one, too, into a greenside bunker. Then he compounded the mistake by failing to get his bunker shot to the green, leaving it in the gnarly bermuda rough, 25 feet short of the pin. 

It was all he could do from that ugly lie in the rough just to make a stab at the ball, and the resulting jab/chip shot went 11 feet past the hole. Hoge missed the putt.

Suddenly, his one-shot lead was transformed into a one-shot deficit.  

He followed his 16th-hole disaster with what was probably his best iron shot of the day, a 7-iron that trickled past the cup at the par-3 17th and ended up 9 feet past the hole. That putt had been breaking to the right all day, and Hoge started it just left of the cup. But this time, it didn't break, and he had to settle for a par. 

One down with one hole to go, he blocked his tee shot into a fairway bunker at the 550-yard, dogleg-left, par-5 18th hole. He had to lay up from there, but he hit a wedge shot to 9 feet.

Kizzire could have avoided the playoff by making a birdie at the 18th, but he missed from 18 feet. That gave Hoge one last chance to join the tie at the top -- and the playoff. He hit a pretty good putt. This 9-footer burned the edge of the cup, but once again it failed to fall. 

The check that he received moved him up from No. 55 to No. 24 on the money list. He's made $725,310 in six events so far in the 2017-18 season. 

PGA TOUR

Sony Open in Hawaii

At Waialae Golf Course

Par 70, 7,020 yards

Honolulu, Hawaii

Final results 

1. Patton Kizzire            $1,116,000     67-64-64-68--263 (won playoff with par on sixth extra hole)

2. James Hahn                 $669,600    67-69-65-62--263

3. Tom Hoge                    $421,600    65-65-64-70--264

T4. Brian Harman             $256,267    64-63-68-70--265

T4. Webb Simpson           $256,267    67-70-63-65--265

T4. Brian Stuard               $256,267    67-66-67-65--265

T7. Gary Woodland          $193,233    67-67-68-64--266

T7. Ben Martin                 $193,233     69-66-66-65--266

T7. Ollie Schniederjans  $193,233      66-65-67-68--266

T10. Ryan Blaum            $148,800     66-68-68-65--267

T10. Chirs Kirk                $148,800     63-67-67-70--267

T10. Russell Knox          $148,800     69-64-65-69--267

T10. Kyle Stanley           $148,800     64-67-65-71--267

T14. Daniel Berger         $108,500     67-68-69-64--268

T14. Justin Thomas       $108,500      67-67-66-68--268

T14. Jerry Kelly              $108,500      66-67-69-66--268

T14. Zach Johnson        $108,500      63-67-71-67--268

Missed cut -- 138

Troy Merritt                                          73-68--141