Brandt Snedeker’s two-year jaunt to the top of the world rankings continued on Sunday, as the No. 7 player clinched his second straight multi-win season with a victory at the 2013 RBC Canadian Open. Snedeker started the season finishing inside the top three in three of his first four starts, before finally breaking through at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. That February win came on the heels of back-to-back runner-up finishes to Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, but Snedeker has established himself alongside those two Hall of Famers as one of America’s best.
Brandt Snedeker wins the 2013 RBC Canadian Open
One of America’s best comes through again for his fourth win in the last two years.
Hunter Martin
Snedeker made his first big splash at last year’s FedExCup, where he clinched things in Atlanta to cash the $10 million prize. He’s repeatedly contended at major championships, but has yet to put it all together on Sunday for one of those career-defining wins. The Vandy product had an adventurous week at Muirfield, four-putting for triple bogeys but then getting his putter rolling later on the weekend to finish T11. He’s almost always around the first page of the leaderboard, whether it’s a major or regular PGA Tour stop and he started this week as the favorite of the oddsmakers.
The RBC Canadian Open had a fairly deep field for an event right after a major, but Snedeker took control of the 54-hole lead on Saturday and cruised in Sunday afternoon for the multi-shot win. He was aided by the withdrawal of Hunter Mahan, who held the 36-hole lead, but jetted off to Dallas for the birth of his first born. Even with Mahan gone, the leaderboard was still loaded with some of the top players in the world, including fellow Americans Dustin Johnson and Matt Kuchar.
Johnson briefly pulled even with Snedeker after a birdie on the par-5 16th hole, but sailed his drive way out of bounds on the very next hole to relinquish the lead. DJ, who narrowly missed an eagle to take the outright lead, then carded a triple bogey and it was basically Snedeker’s tournament from there. Johnson, Kuchar, William McGirt and Jason Bohn all finished tied for second, three shots back at 13-under.
Snedeker is considered one of the best putters in the world, but as we saw last week, it can sometimes be an adventure on the greens at the majors. He said after the round that he “didn’t have his best stuff” on Sunday, but he rolled it well enough to hang on for the multi-shot win. It’s his sixth career victory, and he now jumps ahead of Phil Mickelson in the FedExCup standings, behind only Kuchar and Tiger Woods.
He’s now off to Akron for an important two-week stretch, the WGC-Bridgestone and the PGA Championship. He certainly has the game to go back-to-back and win a WGC event with one of the deepest fields all year, but the next big obstacle is getting that major win and he’ll have that chance at Oak Hill in two weeks.
It’s also been a good two weeks for Sneds in these parts -- creating a new dance move and now winning another $1 million-plus payday.
Anchor down.
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