Grillo birdies second playoff hole to salvage win at Colonial

At No. 16 in regulation, Grillo took the solo lead with a 20-foot birdie. His lead was two shots going to No. 18 before a wayward tee shot to the right. His ball went into a small concrete drainage canal, then floated 150 yards or so back toward the tee box before coming to rest against a rock in the middle of the water flow.

After taking a penalty stroke with a drop, and having to set his ball on the concrete near where the ball entered the canal, his approach was short of the green. He then two-putted from nearly 20 feet for double-bogey to drop to 8-under.

While all that was playing out at No. 18, and Grillo waited to see what was going to happen to his ball, Schenk made an eight-foot birdie putt at No. 16. It was his only birdie of the round, getting him to 8-under before Grillo had even finished at 18.

Schenk made a par at No. 17 out of a greenside bunker before a closing par at No. 18.

PGA Tour rookie Harry Hall, in the final group with Schenk, bogeyed the final hole after his drive into the water to miss getting in the playoff. He finished tied for third at 7-under with local favourite Scott Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the world who had a hole-in-one at the 189-yard 8th hole during his closing 67.

Paul Haley II shot 67 to finish fifth at 6-under 274.

Nick Taylor of Abbotsford, B.C., missed the weekend cut after rounds of 71 and 73 left him at 4-over. The cut line was 1-over.

Grillo had four birdies and two bogeys on his first seven holes Sunday, but caught up to the lead with a 17-foot birdie at the 435-yard 12th hole.

After starting the third round with eagle-birdie Saturday, Grillo finished with a double bogey and two bogeys over his last six holes to fall four strokes off the lead.

Hall, a 25-year-old Englishman, was the solo leader after the first and second round. Tied with Schenk to start the final round, Hall got started with consecutive birdies to drop to 12 under, but those were his only birdies in a closing 73.

Scheffler was the Colonial runner-up last year after losing to Sam Burns on the first playoff hole. When Scheffler’s tee shot at No. 8 took a couple of bounces and rolled into the cup, he was 7 under. But he was even the rest of the way, with a birdie at the 10th and bogey on the par-3 16th.

It was Scheffler’s second career ace. The first came in his PGA Tour debut as a 17-year-old at the 2014 Byron Nelson in his hometown of Dallas.

Harris English had a hole-in-one at No. 8 on Friday, when the hole was playing at 170 yards. Before that, no one had aced that hole since Jim Furyk in 2011.

English played with Hall in the final group during the third round, but had dropped out of a share of the lead when he bogeyed his final hole Saturday.

A four-time PGA Tour winner, English began Sunday with a birdie at the par-5 1st, but that was his only one. He was out of contention after four bogeys over six holes to finish his front nine, staring with three in a row on Nos. 4-6. He shot 76 and finished tied for 12th.

Burns shot a closing 68 to finish at 5-under 275, tied for sixth.

Michael Kim (67), who also tied for sixth, and Kurt Kitayama (68) had the only bogey-free rounds Sunday. Kim was one of only three players with two bogey-free rounds at Colonial.

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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Stephen Hawkins, The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

Grillo birdies second playoff hole to salvage win at Colonial

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