2014 Players Championship results: Martin Kaymer barely hangs on in wild finish at TPC Sawgrass

After a late Sunday rain delay, Martin Kaymer didn’t make things easy at The Players Championship, but the former No. 1 player in the world pulled it out at TPC Sawgrass to earn the biggest paycheck of his career. What once looked like a multi-shot victory was a breathless race to the finish and one-shot win over Jim Furyk in the darkness.

After winning the PGA Championship and getting to No. 1 in the world, Kaymer, who hits a sweet high fade, curiously tinkered with his swing, trying to hit a better draw to contend at venues like Augusta National. He tumbled down the world rankings, and barely factored on Tour in the last couple years. But he’s been steadily popping back up on the first page of leaderboards, and that culminated with this week’s resurgence at the game’s “fifth major.”

Kaymer opened the week by matching the course record with a round of 63. He wouldn’t equal that brilliance over the final three days, but he was just as steady and smooth to never sleep without the lead this week in Ponte Vedra. That steadiness, however, completely disappeared after storms rolled in and halted his march to the title on the 14th hole. With lightning and rolling thunder in the area, the horn blew at 5:39 and play was stopped until 7:10 p.m. ET.

Kaymer retired to the clubhouse with a three-shot lead, a cushion he held for much of the weekend. But when he came back, his game and mind were not the same. On his first tee shot, he pull-hooked one into the pine straw at the 15th. A few more poor shots later, and he walked off that green with a double bogey and his lead reduced to one. Kaymer then made a curious decision to putt with his ball up against the first cut and miles from the hole at the 16th green, and he’d make a disappointing par there to make those final two nerve-wracking holes the ultimate test with his game leaving him at the worst time possible.

The tee shot at 17 should be a simple wedge from about 135 yards, but with a one-shot lead on Sunday at The Players it’s so much more than that. Kaymer juuuuust snuck his ball onto the front of the green, and then watched helplessly as it gained steam rolling back towards the water. It was a heartrending few seconds and it looked like his lead was gone.

He would flub his chip shot standing on the edge of the water with his ball in that thick grass, leaving a long par-saving putt. Kaymer had avoided the water, but there was no way he was going to keep the lead with such a lengthy winding putt to get a par. And then, from nowhere, after almost an hour of poor play and shaky decision-making, he bombed in a putt to preserve the lead.

At the 18th, a hole that sets up better for the shot Kaymer struggles to hit -- a draw -- Kaymer managed to clean up a par and hold on for the one-shot win over Furyk. The final pairing needed the light from the clubhouse and the scoreboards to illuminate the green, where Kaymer got up and down from the front edge for one last exhaling par save.

He’s a major champion and hit the Ryder Cup-clinching putt under the most intense conditions in 2012, but this win is a huge career achievement on a special day. Kaymer lost his mother to skin cancer six years ago, and he broke down on the 18th green when asked about winning such a huge tournament on Mother’s Day.

On a day that started with Jordan Spieth and his bogey-free streak of 54 holes getting all the publicity, it was Kaymer who created the best story in one of the more dramatic final hours at The Players. Here are the final results from the week at Pete Dye’s Stadium Course: