PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Webb Simpson won the 2018 Players Championship running away. Simpson held a seven-stroke lead after 54 holes and per Golf Channel’s Justin Ray, no one in the history of the sport has given up more than a six stroke lead.
Simpson, who led the field in both driving accuracy and strokes gained putting, clearly had an extra gear this week. He appeared to be on another planet and the former belly putter – he won a U.S. Open with one in 2012 – did it with a Kuchar style (for lack of a better term) putter.
Having not won since 2014, Simpson went through a fairly rough stretch, but in the past two years his game has picked up and he’s started finishing in the top 10 more often (6 total last year, 5 to date in 2018). Those performances culminated on Sunday to make him hall of fame eligible – crazy, I know.
Although he could hear the roars ahead of him from a certain … Tiger … he knew that it would take something extremely special to catch him. No one did and despite finishing with a double-bogey on the 72nd hole after his second shot found the water left of the green, Simpson still won with a four-stroke lead over three guys at 14-under.
It was a ridiculously good performance by a very unlikely player, but in golf, that’s what happens. You never know when the guy who hasn’t won in years, but has the pedigree to do so, will get hot and light it up.