Patrick Reed holes out for eagle, completes comeback win at Hyundai Tournament of Champions

Patrick Reed joined Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, and Sergio Garcia in a select circle Monday when he defeated Jimmy Walker on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions.

Reed, 24, became just the fourth player in the last 20 years to post his fourth PGA Tour win before turning 25. He did so by forcing overtime with Walker, who began the final round of the PGA Tour’s winner’s-only start to the new year tied for the lead, and rolling in a 19-foot birdie putt on the extra frame.

Two birdies down the stretch and a hole-out for eagle on the 16th hole brought Reed back from four shots down with four to play to shoot a 6-under 67.

Walker, meanwhile, made a bogey on the par-4 14th and had to settle for pars on the next two holes after missing birdie putts, each within 10 feet.

“It was there for me to win,” Walker told reporters after posting a final-round 69 that put him in a tie with Reed at 21-under and seemingly in good shape in the playoff when Reed’s approach came up well short of the 18th green. “It was a bummer I didn’t close the door on it.”

Walker, though, knocked his shot into the right rough toward the gallery, chipped his ball over the green, and left his next chip some six feet from the pin.

The win was the first for Reed, in the 34-player field thanks to two victories last season, since besting the field at the WGC-Cadillac Championship in March, after which he infamously boasted he was one of the top five players in the world.

“I’m just going out there and just trying to play my game and trying to improve,” Reed said after winning and showing off his Stewart Cink-like tan line. “Winning here just kind of backs up that we’re moving in the right direction.”

Reed’s finish was expected to move him from No. 23 to 14 in the rankings.

“Winning another event,” Reed said, “it gives me confidence, but at the same time I need to back it up with continuing to play well.”