Nico Echavarria set a new tournament scoring record as he logged a one-stroke victory at the PGA Tour's Zozo Championship this week.
The 30-year-old Colombian finished the event on -20 after 260 total strokes, the lowest number in any of the six editions so far and one better than Tiger Woods' 19-under 261 at the inaugural running in 2019.
Patrick Cantlay won on 23-under back in 2020, but that was on a par-72 layout in the US during the only year the Zozo was not played at Narashino Country Club, due to Covid.
In 2024, Echavarria went 64-64-65 through the opening three days to open up a two-stroke advantage at the par-70 course and put himself within touching distance of a second PGA Tour crown. His first was at the 2023 Puerto Rico Open.
And on Sunday, he held off the challenge of Justin Thomas and Max Greyserman - who he had partnered to a T4th result at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans earlier in the year - via a three-under 67.
A significant factor in Echavarria's success was his ability to make birdie on the par-3 holes during the final round. Out of the four available, he walked off with a two in three of them. However, his wining moment arrived on a par-5, moments after he had made a bogey six on the 14th.
Main challenger, Greyserman had failed with his outside chance to reach 20-under on the 18th, and Thomas duly leaped into a tie for second courtesy of a 72nd-hole birdie. Echavarria knew a birdie of his own would be enough to get the job done, and that's exactly what happened from three feet.
Reacting to his success, the 30-year-old said: "I was very nervous starting, but I managed it well. I made a lot of key putts out there. I only had one bad swing all day. Other than that I played a lot of good golf, so I'm happy to finish the way I did.
"I'm just super excited. It's been a lot of work, it's been a lot of rough weeks, but moments like this are the ones that make everything better.
“It was very close all day, it was fun. (Thomas and Greyserman) got off to a hot start and it was very level during the last, I don't know, 13 holes or 10 holes. Max played great. Justin has been playing incredible, he hit a lot of good putts that didn't go in. But overall, it was special to finish birdie-par-birdie and take this home.
"It's the second win on the PGA Tour, not a lot of people get to win two times on the PGA Tour. I'm just going to enjoy this as much as I can and get ready for the next one."
"Moments like this are the ones that make everything better."Nico Echavarria managed his nerves down the stretch to earn the victory @ZOZOChamp. pic.twitter.com/Mzu6XePJ1COctober 27, 2024
A rank outsider to win before a golf ball was struck due to missing three cuts in his past four starts, Echavarria knew he had to do something different if he was to achieve success.
With that in mind, he changed his putting grip and ended the week eighth in Strokes Gained: Putting - having been well outside of the top-100 in the same metric all season.
He explained: "New grip this week, that was the difference. Yeah, I consider myself a good putter, I just needed something different. These greens are rolling so good that it wasn't very hard to make a lot of putts."
As a result of his tweak, Echavarria will now head to The Masters next April for the first time as well as collecting a host of other perks.
He said: "Yeah, I'm very excited to go for the first time to Augusta, I've never been. I was waiting to win myself that trip before going and we've done that, so we're going to be very happy to play the Masters in a couple months."
Outside of the top three, who were split by just a stroke, Rickie Fowler found some welcome form in solo fourth on 17-under. Kurt Kitayama possessed solo fifth on 15-under while five players shared sixth on 13-under - J.J. Spaun, Yuta Sugiura, Si Woo Kim, Eric Cole, and C.T. Pan.
