Cameron Davis’ brilliant weekend secures third place at RBC Heritage
Cameron Davis – file photo
Australia’s Cameron Davis has produced a stunning weekend at the RBC Heritage Classic on Hilton Head Island to narrowly miss a second PGA Tour title.
Davis finished in a seven way share of third place just one shot behind the playoff between Patrick Cantlay and Jordan Spieth which eventually went the way of Spieth who defeated Patrick Cantlay at the first hole of a playoff.
For the Sydney native, he recorded his 7th top ten on the PGA Tour including his breakthrough win at the Rocket Mortgage event last year.
Davis made the cut on the number on Friday and was at that point nine shots behind the 36-hole leader, Patrick Cantlay.
A third round of 4 under 67 improved him to 38th place but he was still seven shots behind the leader, Harold Varner 111, heading into the last round.
He would, though, race to the turn in 31 today and added three more birdies on the way in for a best of the day round of 63 to be tied in the lead when he finished his round more than three hours ahead of the final group.
“I played obviously pretty well today tee to green and started knocking some putts in,” said Davis. “I’ve been putting in a lot of good work over the last few weeks, and it was nice to see it turn itself into a really good score.
“I started putting some good work into play. I’d had a couple of weeks off and did a really good job. My coach was able to make it over from Australia for the first time in a while. So that work was started at Augusta. Unfortunately, it didn’t lead to awesome golf there, but it was definitely trending and kind of accumulated to today where it felt like everything was working quite well.
“I’m very pleased. I’m glad I hung on at the end there. Hit a couple of squirrely shots, but almost got that one on 18, which would have been nice. But I can’t complain.
“I love this course. I love the trees and the fairways. In Seattle, I play at Sahalee, and you get plenty of good practice having aerial obstacles in your way when you’re in the fairways.
“I just love shaping it around the trees. I love the course giving you shots and challenging you to hit the right one. Obviously the wind was pretty tricky. This kind of course in that wind gets pretty crazy. But on a day like today and yesterday where it’s all about you and how well you hit it rather than up to the luck of the draw with the wind, it was really satisfying to play a course like this and play it well.”
Davis earned US$330,000 for his share of third.
Eventually, Jordan Spieth would birdie the final hole to complete a round of 66 and take the lead and waited while a large group of players still in contention remained on the course as possible hopes for the title.
Cantlay birdied the 17th and then missed a very makeable birdie attempt at the last which would have given him the title outright but he and Jordan headed back to the 18th tee with Spieth successful after making par from the bunker.
For Spieth it was his first top ten in the event and his first win since Easter last year, interestingly enough, when successful at the Valero Texas Open.
