Hometown hero J.T. Poston wins in historic fashion at Wyndham Championship

J.T. Poston, a native of North Carolina, wins the Wyndham Championship and becomes the first PGA Tour champ to go bogey-free in more than four decades

A quick look at J.T. Poston’s scorecard this week at the Wyndham Championship shows something not seen in a long time. A lot of circles—21 of them, in fact—but no squares. Not one of them.

Poston went bogey-free over 72 holes at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro to win his first career PGA Tour title. He’s the first player to win a PGA Tour event without making a bogey in 45 years.

The 26-year-old North Carolina native made 20 birdies and an eagle for the week to finish at 22-under, beating Webb Simpson by one shot. He came into Sunday’s final round trailing leader Byeong Hun An by three shots and didn’t wait long to make his move. After an early birdie at the second hole, Poston hit the reachable par-five fifth hole in two shots and rolled in a 13-foot putt for eagle to go three-under on the round. Two great approaches to within five feet at the seventh and eighth set up birdies as we made the turn in five-under 30.

Poston found the left-hand rough with his drive on the 10th but managed to get his approach to 12 feet, setting up another birdie. Continuing his solid play with his irons, he hit a pitching wedge from 130 yards out to two feet at the 13th, then got up-and-down from the bunker over the green on the par-five 15th for his sixth birdie of the round and sole possession of the lead.

An, the South Korean former U.S. Amateur champion, was in the hunt for history of his own. He was also bogey-free for the tournament before coming to the 15th hole, his 69th of the week and one of the easiest on the course. For the second straight day, he drove into heavy rough and had to take a penalty drop. This time, though, he failed to save par, ending his bogey-free streak. Now needing to birdie two of his last three holes to tie Poston, An holed a 15-footer at the 16th but missed from 23 feet at 17. He finished with a bogey at the 18th to drop to third place, two shots behind.

Poston parred his last three holes to finish with an eight-under round of 62 and 22-under for the tournament. Simpson, another North Carolina native who named his daughter Wyndham after the site of his first PGA Tour title in 2011, moved up to second place.

Poston’s feat of not making a bogey is incredibly rare in itself. To win an event doing it is historic. Lee Trevino at the 1974 Greater New Orleans Open is the only other player to accomplish it in PGA Tour history. Scott Piercy went bogey-free at the AT&T Byron Nelson in May but finished two shots behind, the only other time it’s been done on tour since 2010.

“I was telling some people earlier, I probably haven’t had that many bogey-free rounds this season, this year,” Poston said at his post-victory press conference. “Much less back to back. And to be able to do four in a row is pretty special.”

Trevino is a World Golf Hall of Famer, a six-time major champion and one of the best players in the game’s history. Poston, meanwhile, is in his third year on the PGA Tour and had never finished higher than fourth in any event in his career. He didn’t have a top-10 since April and missed five of his last nine cuts.

But Poston found something in his game this week and only rarely was in trouble. His longest par save came from eight feet at the 15th in Saturday’s third round after taking a drop off the tee. That he was playing in front of essentially a hometown crowd helped too. Poston is a native of Hickory, less than 100 miles from Sedgefield, and graduated from Western Carolina. That made this win, followed along by his family and the crowd, surpass even his wildest dreams.

“Not even close. The only similarity from today then what I’ve dreamed of was having a four-footer to win,” he said. “But having all the support and hearing all the crowds, my friends and family cheering me on on every shot, after every shot, was something that I’ve never dreamed of and was pretty special.”

Poston is projected to rise to 27th in the FedEx Cup standings, which begins next week with The Northern Trust at Liberty National in New Jersey.