Nico Echavarria birdied two of his final three holes on Sunday at the ZOZO Championship in Chiba to record a one-shot victory.
Echavarria, a 30-year-old Colombian who played at the University of Arkansas, finished with a 3-under 67 on Sunday at Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club, setting a new tournament record at 20-under 260. He beat Tiger Woods’ total of 261 sets in 2019.
“I can’t believe we won a tournament that Tiger won,” Echavarria said. “This is my second win, so I only need 80 more wins to catch him. But I’m on my way.”
Echavarria, who also won the 2023 Puerto Rico Open, beat Max Glaserman (65th Sunday) and Justin Thomas (66th) by one stroke. Echavarria earned $1.53 million for winning the 78-player no-cut tournament and is expected to move up to No. 65 in the FedEx Cup rankings after starting the week at No. 113.
“It’s surreal,” he said. “This year has been a good year for me, I just haven’t had the best results. I’ve been very consistent and I’ve learned a lot this year. It’s incredible to end the year like this. Especially to be able to achieve that here, in such a wonderful country like Japan. ”
Echavarria had two bogeys and five birdies in the final round. He reached the par-5 18th in two strokes, pulled within 3 feet on his next putt and won on his final stroke.
Thomas, who earned $748,000 for his T2 finish along with Glaserman, recorded his fourth birdie of the day on the 18th hole to cap off a bogey-free round. He fell just short of recording his 16th career title on the PGA Tour and his first since winning the 2022 PGA Championship.
“Obviously I was down and disappointed, but I played really well,” Thomas said. “I played well enough to win the tournament. I hit a lot of good putts today, but they didn’t go in. That’s the difference.”
Looking for his first PGA Tour title, Glaserman carded four of five birdies on his front nine. Despite his strong putting, this was his third runner-up finish in the past five tournaments.
“We just didn’t execute right down the stretch when we needed to,” Glaserman said. “So Nico stepped up there and hit a great second shot (on No. 18). He made it.”
Rickie Fowler shot a bogey-free 64 to finish in 4th place at 17 under, and Kurt Kitayama (65) finished in 5th place at 15 under. Their finishes put four American athletes in the top five.
–Field level media
