Rickie Fowler wins the 2015 Players Championship in historic, heartrending fashion

The Players Championship sputtered for much of the weekend, a tight leaderboard with only a few big moves that you were just hoping might yield a dramatic finish late on Sunday. It delivered, with one historic charge from Rickie Fowler, some career putting from Sergio Garcia, and some deadly consistent form from Kevin Kisner, playing in the Sunday final pairing.

The trio went to the first ever three-hole aggregate playoff and just the fifth playoff in Players history (four of them coming at TPC Sawgrass). With the sun setting at TPC Sawgrass, all three players continued to play almost flawless golf from tee-to-green. Kisner and Fowler both birdied the 17th hole, with Rickie igniting the crowd by sticking it to just a few feet from a tucked pin placement.

Fowler steadily drilled the putt, putting him and Kisner ahead of Sergio in the aggregate playoff. Garcia was not able to birdie the 18th, so the Spaniard was gone while Kisner and Rickie went back to the 17th for a sudden death playoff.

Rickie stayed dialed-in at the 17th coming through for the third time of the day and second time in the playoff, sticking it even closer than the first one in extra holes.

It was an outrageous performance on a hole that’s supposed to be the most difficult at the most important times. Fowler, however, birdied it FIVE times this week.

That shot and his ownership of the island green were enough to seal the biggest win of his career.

The final round started with 30 players within five shots of the lead. Before this years edition, the most bunched up the leaderboard has been going into the final round was 20 players within five shots (back in 1982 when the event moved to Sawgrass). So we expected it to be a manic final round, but the movement over the final 90 minutes resulted in maybe the most dramatic finish ever at The Players and one of the best in recent Tour history.

Fowler’s streak down the stretch was historic, needing just 11 strokes to play the last four holes. That was a Players record. He spent most of the day out of view of the broadcast and with about an hour left in his round, he was five shots off the lead. Then he went and played the final six holes in 6-under to ignite the crowds at the rowdy finishing stretch in Ponte Vedra.

Fowler started the week getting hounded by the press after an anonymous SI poll of his peers voted him the “most overrated” player on Tour (tied with Ian Poulter). It’s a vacuous word and means little, but Fowler has taken heat for getting so many outside endorsements and exposure with just one PGA Tour win. He said the the much-publicized poll would motivate him at times on the course this week, but that it wasn’t going to have a major impact on what he was doing. Regardless of whether he got the win or not, that finish was going down in history as one of the best ever on Tour. It put a jolt into what had been a relatively sleepy weekend at this “fifth major.” Here are all 11 shots from the best finish in this event’s history:

Including the playoff, he finished his last 10 holes in 8-under. It’s an incredible performance and one that will hopefully propel one of the Tour’s best young players to much more.

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