Casey Breaks the Drought at The Valspar Championship

The stage was set at the Valspar Championship. A crowded leaderboard full of big names and new blood were poised to battle it out as the golf world waited anxiously for a great comeback back by a star player to finally end a very long victory drought.

That’s exactly what happened. Except it wasn’t Tiger Woods that pulled it off. It was Paul Casey.

Casey who had played well the last season but couldn’t notch a win came from five shots off the lead to win for the first time since 2009. Casey got to ten under par with three consecutive birdies on the back nine and then watched from the clubhouse as Woods and Patrick Reed came up one shot short.

Reed was tied with Casey until a poor putt at the 72^nd hole never made it up a steep ridge and rolled back to his feet. All he could manage was a bogey five and with Woods failing to birdie the last Casey was the one left standing.

Casey’s six under 65 tied him for low round of the day with Sergio Garcia and catapulted him ten slots up the leaderboard. He opened with a birdie on the first and after a bogey on the third he found three more birdies to close the front with a 33. Coupled with his clean back nine 32 his 65 looked tenuous early on. Even he said as he waited he told the media that he had hoped to get to eleven under. But the Snake Pit is a difficult string of holes and to get through there in even par proved to be enough.

Casey’s drought on the PGA Tour included near misses with two seconds in 2015, seven top tens in 2016 with two seconds and nine top tens in 2017. He has won 13 times on the European Tour with his last at the KLM Open in 2014.

Driving and putting were the key to Casey’s victory as he hit 69% of his fairways and needed only a meager 21 putts to notch his much awaited second PGA Tour win.

Woods and Reed wore their traditional Sunday red shirts hoping for good luck and a victory but it was Casey wearing an opposing green shirt that proved to be the good luck charm. Green means “go” and maybe this is where Casey can get his career back in the fast lane.