Ryan Palmer and Jon Rahm shot a 3-under 69 in the alternate-shot final round of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans on Sunday to win the PGA TOUR’s only team event by three strokes over Sergio Garcia and Tommy Fleetwood.
The victory was the fourth on TOUR for the 42-year-old Palmer, but his first in nearly a decade.
Having last won in 2010 at the Sony Open in Hawaii, Palmer waved and gave a thumbs-up to TV cameras as he walked up the 18th fairway with a throng of fans applauding his and Rahm’s impending triumph.
The 24-year-old Rahm won his third TOUR title – one each in three straight seasons. He finished in the top 10 for the seventh time this year.
The South African combination of Branden Grace and Justin Harding tumbled dramatically out of the picture with a final round 80. They started the day one back of the leaders, but struggled early with a bogey at the first and a three-putt par on the second. A double at the fourth was their final act of disappearing from contention.
Palmer/Rahm finished with a 26-under 262 total at the TPC Louisiana, which had dried out considerably since heavy rain had delayed the first round by more than seven hours, and many players were forced to play more than 18 holes on Friday and Saturday to get the event back on schedule.
Opening the final round tied atop the leaderboard with Scott Stallings and Trey Mullinax, Team Palmer/Rahm surged to a two-stroke lead in just two holes after Stallings/Mullinax bogeyed the first hole, and Rahm nearly holed out from the fringe to set up Palmer’s 1-foot birdie putt on the par-5 second.
The eventual winners never lost the lead after that, making birdies on 13 and 14 at virtually the same time that Garcia/Fleetwood were making birdies on 17 and 18. From there, they just had to avoid mistakes – and did.
The teams of Kyoung-Hoon Lee/Matt Every and Brian Gay/Rory Sabbatini tied for third, five shots behind.
The winners each earned 400 FedExCup points and took home $1.05-million, moving Rahm up to nearly $3.1-million this season and Palmer to about $2.3m.
