KC Golf Classic comes down to the final putt of the tournament

Teeing off on the 15th hole of Nicklaus Golf Club at Lionsgate on Sunday afternoon, Sepp Straka looked at the leaderboard for the first time of the day.

He knew he was sitting near the top of the leaderboard alongside Kyle Jones, but he wanted to make sure nobody else was catching up. Straka knew exactly where he and Jones stood against one another, with the pair heading into the fourth and final round of the KC Golf Classic far ahead of rest of the leaderboard.

The Austrian native had endured a roller coaster of a round throughout Saturday, putting up four bogeys and six birdies, while his counterpart Jones had stuck to par throughout the most of the day.

But it all came down to the 18th hole and final putt of the tournament to decide who walked home with the cash prize of $121,500.

After two strokes each on the 18th and both shooting 21-under par, Straka sat in a bunker to the left of the fairway, while Jones was set up nicely on the edge of the green.

Straka had already bogeyed on the 18th in the second and third rounds, and had opted to rip a driver down the fairway on Sunday, instead of using a 3-wood like he’d originally planned.

And the decision may have backfired, if Jones didn’t miss back-to-back putts and allowed Straka to get up and down out of the banker and close to the hole.

“I tried to stay in the moment. I just knew that I was going to try and make my bunker shot, and if not, try and get up and down,” Straka said. “That’s all I tried to think about on that last hole.”

With Jones only managing a bogey — just his second of the day — Straka took the opportunity to sink his putt in one attempt and take home the grand prize in front of a roaring gallery.

The victory is perhaps a deserving one for Straka, who had endured a difficult season until this weekend, missing out on his last three cuts despite playing good golf.

“It’s awesome. The season hadn’t been good. Honestly I’ve felt like I’ve played pretty good golf; struggled with my putting kind of halfway through the season, but got that straightened out,” Straka said. “I knew I was pretty close to playing good golf, so I just stuck with it.”

Elsewhere in the tournament, former Kansas golfer Chris Thompson finished in a tie for fourth place, after shooting 17-under for the tournament. The result is Thompson’s fourth 10th place finish of 2018.

This story was originally published August 5, 2018 at 8:05 PM.