PGA Tour
Kevin Yu bags his first PGA Tour win in wild finish at the Sanderson Farms Championship
Justin Casterline
Beau Hossler made two straight remarkable recoveries after yanking his drive left on the 18th hole at the Country Club of Jackson on Sunday. The first, resulting in a par, saved his spot in a playoff, and gave him a prayer of winning his first PGA Tour event. The second, just minutes later in that playoff, left him with a tap-in par putt that he never attempted. Par, at that point, was simply not good enough.
For that harsh reality, Hossler can thank Kevin Yu, the 26-year-old from Taiwan who made birdie on that first playoff hole to become just the third player from his nation (after T.C. Chen and C.T. Pan) to win on the PGA Tour. Yu's Sunday 67, following three straight 66s to start the tournament in the Mississippi capital, helped erase a two-shot deficit to 54-hole leader Keith Mitchell. Throughout his round, he seemed preternaturally serene in the face of career-altering stakes.
"I'm excited inside my mind," he said moments after his round, "but I'm trying to be as calm as possible on my outside."
Yu had a terrific start to his sophomore season in January, notching two top-five finishes, but he dragged toward the end of the year, missing the cut in three of his last four events. He hasn't played since the Olympics, and attributed that break to his resurgent form in Mississippi.
"I feel like I took a little break last month, and I think it helped me," he said. "I was playing great, but mentally I was tired, I was frustrated, and feeling like my momentum was not going anywhere in the last maybe six months."
Yu's goal was to shoot five or six under, and by hitting the former number with a 15-foot birdie putt on 18 just ahead of the final group, he tied the lead held by Mitchell and Hossler just behind him.
After the final pair hit their tee shots, it was Hossler, stuck behind a tree miles off the fairway, who seemed the least likely to hold his score of 23 under and make a playoff, particularly after two straight rules officials denied him TIO relief. He was forced to punch out to the fairway, but there, from 130 yards out, he dropped his approach three feet from the hole and converted the par.
It was Mitchell, safely in the fairway, who ended up as the tragic figure of the closing stretch. He reached the green safely from 169 yards out, but perhaps too safely, leaving 39 feet for what would have been a tournament-winning birdie. He went for it, missing by inches, but the ball rolled out to four feet, and a misread saw his par putt slide by the hole on the left. Moments earlier, he had been the outright leader, and now he was out of the running.
"The first putt actually looked good off the face," Mitchell said of his attempt on 18. "And right when it missed I kinda turned my head and didn't watch the read on the way by. So when I got over there I assumed obviously it was breaking right back up the hill. I played it left edge, left center, and hit it, and it just didn't go in."
"I didn't have my best on the back nine," Mitchell added. "I think 18 was the only fairway I hit, so I didn't really deserve ... I don't really deserve anything out here, I'm just lucky to be on tour. But I didn't have my best stuff at the end, and I hate that I finished with a three-putt but felt like I grinded all the way to the end and gave the first putt a really good chance."
On the playoff hole, Yu found the fairway on his drive, and Hossler once again bounded left, though not nearly as far as his last attempt. He was granted some relief, but once Yu hit a clutch approach to inside six feet, Hossler was forced to try something dramatic. He hit a low hook, trying to run the ball up to the green while staying below the branches of a tree guarding the left side of the approach. The desperate shot ended up in the front left bunker, but Hossler managed to put some pressure on Yu but hitting out of the sand to two feet.
But with the chance of a lifetime staring him down, with his parents Tommy and Eileen looking on, Yu rose to the moment and buried the downhill right-to-left putt to capture his first PGA Tour title.
"Definitely stings," Hossler said, describing himself as "a little salty" in the aftermath of defeat. "But you got to tip your hat. I don't know what he shot today, but had to be six, seven under and then to birdie the playoff hole, pretty flawless day. Good for him."
Yu, standing with both parents, let his excitement pour out after his putt.
"It's literally a dream come true," he said. "I've been dreaming of this moment since I was 5. This is a dream for all the golfers to win on the PGA Tour, and I did it today and I'm really thankful for my parents. Without them I couldn't have done this."
Yu, who started 96th in the FedEx Cup standings, moves to position No. 60 and ends any drama about losing status for next season. He has also put himself in prime position to make the AON Next 10, the category reserved for players ranked 51st to 60th at the end of the fall who gain entry into the first two signature events of 2025.
Needless to say, his win also comes with the usual perks—a $1.368 million payday, a two-year exemption, and a berth in the Players Championship, Masters and PGA Championship. It's been a long road for Yu, from Taiwan to Arizona State to the Korn Ferry Tour to the PGA Tour, but when the moment came to consolidate all his success, he made the two biggest birdies of his career and now stands as a PGA Tour champion.