Weekly PGA Recap: Taylor Nicks the Win

This article is part of our Weekly PGA Recap series.

As the Sony Open wound down on Sunday at famed Waialae Country Club, J.J. Spaun and Stephan Jaeger appeared headed for a playoff.

Once in the playoff, Nick Taylor defeated Nico Echavarria on the second extra hole.

Wait, what?

In an incredible turn of events, Spaun and Jaeger failed to birdie the must-birdie 18th hole while Taylor eagled it on an incredible must-make chip-in while Echavarria birdied. It also didn't help that Spaun bogeyed 17.

After the two playoff golfers birdied 18, the first extra hole, Taylor birdied it yet again while Echavarria could only par it.

Asked afterward if he were stunned, Taylor said, "Yeah. A little bit."

Indeed.

About 90 minutes earlier, this is how the leaderboard looked.

Data Golf sent a follow-up tweet to say that Echavarria was actually through 17, but their point still stands about the absurdity of Taylor winning.

There are only two par-5s at Waialae, both short and both must-birdie, and Spaun and Jaeger didn't birdie either one Sunday while Taylor and Echavarria did on both -- well, Taylor eagled one of them.

Thus, Taylor won his fifth career PGA Tour title and, even though it's only two week's into the new season, it's fair to say it came out of the blue. After winning in Phoenix nearly a year ago, Taylor's game fell apart. He plummeted from No. 28 in the world rankings to 73rd entering this week. He had only two top-25s in the interim. Taylor's decline was so steep, he didn't make it past the first playoff event last summer. And he went from a near-lock for the Presidents Cup team in his native Canada to a no-chance selection.

Taylor was asked about the swoon, and we want to give you the actual question, since it was kind of funny as the reporter danced around what happened to Taylor, per the official transcript:

Q. How important is the start of the year based on how -- I don't want to say dismal, but bleak part of the second half last year. Did that itch in the offseason?

TAYLOR: Yeah, there is a lot of layers to that. Not making top 50 I knew would make the next year just not where I wanted to be. Not making the Presidents Cup definitely hurt. I felt like my play -- I had more myself to blame. I felt like I put Mike [Weir, International captain] in a tough situation.

Yeah, on top of that I had to play more in the fall than I had originally planned and away from family a few times.
 
Put some work in in the off-season and really wanted to be ready to go. Not that you're ever expecting necessarily to win right away out of the gates after some time off, but I knew my west coast -- because I was in the first two Signature Events, that my west coast was going to be great and a lot of golf courses I played well on and enjoy.

So, again, to have this good of a start is awesome.

Taylor is also becoming a bit of a playoff wizard. He has won a tournament each of the past three seasons, each time in a playoff. There was the incredible Canadian Open victory two years ago, then the Waste Management last year and now the Sony. He is 3-0 in those playoffs. 

"Yeah, I think I enjoy being in those moments," Taylor said. "For whatever reason my mind gets clear in those situations of the shot I'm just trying to hit.

"It's kind of like a match play situation. I feel like I've always enjoyed match play when I was growing up and had success as well just trying to hit each shot at hand.

"I've worked on that the last couple years of why in those situations am I good and other situations where I am not consistent if I'm in 30th or something.

"We will work on that, but nice start to the year obviously."

Obviously.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Nico Echavarria
Echavarria will rue being unable to come out of top, but he is proving to many people that his out-of-nowhere win at the ZOZO in the fall was no fluke. This runner-up was his second since then, in just five starts, and he also had a T6 in there. He's up to No. 41 in the world, easily a career best. 

J.J. Spaun
It might be too strong to say Spaun had the title on his club as things wound down on Sunday, but a simple par-birdie finish would've won it for him in regulation. Spaun ranked 17th on Tour in the all-important Strokes Gained: Approach last year, which indicates he will have more opportunities to win this season. With only 100 golfers keeping their cards for next season, this still goes a long way toward Spaun being one of them. He finished 96th in points last season.

Stephan Jaeger
Jaeger fired an 8-under 62 on Saturday to get into the mix. And he was right there until failing to birdie 18. Jaeger didn't do a lot after winning Houston the week before the Masters last year. But he now has a podium finish in two of his past four starts, following a shared runner-up in Utah in the fall.

Eric Cole
Cole had a better second half of 2024 than first half, and now he's continued with a good start to 2025. He finished solo fifth, a week after finishing 52nd at the Sentry.

Keegan Bradley
Bradley's name at least for the next nine months will pretty much be "Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley." In other words, he'll have a spotlight on him whenever he plays. And right now he's looking pretty good in the spotlight. Bradley tied for sixth, a week after a tying for 15th at the Sentry, which came after he won the BMW Championship in the playoffs last summer. Could Bradley actually play his way into a playing captain role?

Adam Schenk
Two years ago, Schenk took a big leap forward in his career, coming close to winning multiple times. But 2024 saw a big step back, with only one top-10 in 31 starts. Now he has one top-10 in one start with a tie for sixth. It's far too soon to know whether we'll see the 2023 Schenk or 2024 version in 2025.

Patrick Fishburn
Fishburn really came on strong in the second half of last season, then continued upward in the fall season, closing with a tie for eighth in the RSM Classic. And now he started 2025 with a tie for sixth, leading for part of the week, to move to a career-best 93rd in the world. We will need to continue talking about Fishburn.

Jackson Suber
Suber was one of the 30th Korn Ferry grads. Making only his fourth career PGA Tour start, he tied for sixth. Last year, he played one Tour event, finishing 73rd at the U.S. Open. This is obviously a great start for the rookie, but let's wait and see. He did not win on the Korn Ferry last year.

Nick Dunlap
Heading into his breakthrough title defense at this coming week's Amex, Dunlap tied for 10th. An Alabama student when he won as an amateur, he might not have been fully ready for the Tour. But he had little choice to accept membership. Since then, he's won again and appears fully entrenched on Tour now.

Jesper Svensson
Svensson was one of the 10 DP World Tour players to earn a PGA Tour card. In his first regular PGA Tour start, it was so far so good with a tie for 10th. He played two majors last year, making the cut at the PGA, and he also made the cut at the Scottish Open. Svensson is now No. 89 in the world, which is not half bad.

Harry Hall
Hall followed last week's tie for eighth among a lot of top players at the Sentry with a tie for 10th. And when you throw in finishing last season with three straight top 15s, there might be something brewing here.

Hideki Matsuyama
Last week's winner at the Sentry tied for 16th at the Sony. A very fine start to the season.

Webb Simpson
Simpson does not have to worry about the reduced number of Tour cards for 2026. He's already exempt through 2026. But that doesn't mean the 39-year-old doesn't want to improve upon last year's lost season. He's already matched his number of top-25s from a year ago with aT16 at the Sony.

Gary Woodland
Woodland struggled for much of last season – understandably so, recovering from brain surgery. But he played his best golf late in the season and now he's started fast with a tie for 16th. He's now 40 years old, and success doesn't come easy at that age, but Woodland has to be very encouraged by recent results.

Matt Kuchar
Kuchar is now 46, still quite far from the Champions Tour. Last year, he finished 109th in points, which wouldn't be good enough after this year. So, it's an important season ahead. He got off to a good start with a tie for 21st, though it's fair to say Kuchar often plays well at the shorter Waialae track.

Lucas Glover
Glover just missed getting into the first two Signature Events by finishing 61st in points last season. He needed to be 60th or better. So he will have to play his way in to keep up with everyone getting lots of free points in those events. He tied for 21st at the Sony.

MISSED CUTS

Billy Horschel, Byeong Hun An, J.T. Poston, Si Woo Kim, Davis Thompson, Corey Conners, Luke Clanton, Chris Kirk, Mackenzie Hughes. Even though there are nine guys here, it would not have been a surprise had any one of them finished in the top 10. Equally unsurprising, they all missed the cut. Such is the nature of the PGA Tour for players not named Scottie Scheffler. An had a win in Korea in the fall, but the second half of his PGA Tour season was way off. Clanton, the Florida State junior, had one of his few missteps in a Tour event, but Waialae is a complicated course and difficult to master for first-timers.