Back-to-back: Tony Finau cruises to Rocket Mortgage Classic title, 4th win on PGA Tour

SALT LAKE CITY — As his wife Alana stood next to the 18th green at Detroit Golf Club with the CBS television crew, Tony Finau tried to keep his stoic composure as he exited the fairway in the final round of the Rocket Mortgage Classic.

For a brief moment, right as the crowd cheered and the PA announcer introduced the tournament's leader "from Salt Lake City, Utah," his eyes glistened.

History was in sight. A personal-best mark of his career was within grasp — to say nothing of the $1.512 million winner's purse. All Finau had to do was see out the final few strokes.

After a decade-long history of being the bridesmaid on the PGA Tour, Finau was about to do something he's never before accomplished with his fourth tour title: back-to-back wins for the first time in his career.

Finau shot 5-under-par 67 to win the Rocket Mortgage Classic with a four-day total of 26-under 262, a tournament record in relation to par that beat out two-time Utah Open champion Nate Lashley's previous Detroit-best mark of 25-under.

"They say a winner is just a loser that just kept on trying, and that's me to a T," Finau told reporters after his final round. "How many times do I lose? But one thing I won't do is give up and I'm only here as a winner because I chose not to give up and just keep going."

The Rose Park native took advantage of an early bogey by Taylor Pendrith, his playing partner, to take a lead early in the final round and never looked back, finishing off a wire-to-wire victory for back-to-back wins on the PGA Tour for the first time in his 11-year career.

In a span of eight days, Finau went from a PGA Tour also-ran to one of the top golfers in the best golf competition in the world, the No. 16 player in the Official World Golf Rankings that is expected to jump into the top 10 by the time he awakens in Utah on Monday morning.

"I think I've been quoted saying it many times before, a week can change your life," he said. "I guess when you look at mine, two weeks is now back-to-back weeks has now changed my life and it's a great feeling."

His game has been trending upward — and fast — for more than just the past two weeks, though. From Canada to Mexico, Finau was on the verge of a breakout.

In his last nine rounds on the PGA Tour, Finau is 49-under-par with 55 birdies to just six bogeys. He's hitting 87% of his greens in regulation with an average of 26.16 strokes gain through striking.

But the payoff finally came in the last two weeks.

"These two weeks I've been able to make the putts when they count," Finau recounted.

Finau dropped his third birdie of the day on the par-4, 429-yard 10th hole to move to 24-under on a hole he birdied in every round of the tournament. On the next hole, a 68-foot birdie putt skirted just off the lip of the hole and trickled eight feet past as the Utah native who splits time between Lehi and Arizona accepted his first bogey of the tournament.

Four days in and with less than nine holes to go, Finau had been all-but perfect, hitting nearly every green in regulation and gaining as many as three strokes per round with his putter. And he bounced back immediately from that rare square on his scorecard, dropping a 30 footer with perfect speed on the par-3 12th hole. He nearly added an eagle on No. 14, as well, before moving to 4-under on the day with his fifth birdie of the round on a tap-in putt.

Pendrith wouldn't let him pull away, the third-round co-leader who was even-par on the front nine, nor would Patrick Cantlay, the reigning FedEx Cup champion who carded 5-under on the front before an eagle on the par-5 14th hole that briefly cut his own deficit to three shots. Cantlay finished five shots back in second, tied with Pendrith and Cameron Young, the front-runner for rookie for the year who shot 65 Sunday to finish at 21-under.

Stephan Jaeger was fifth at 20-under, followed by Taylor Moore one shot back.

"I wasn't that close," Young said. "Tony put on a show."

Playing on a sponsors exemption, South Korea's Joohyung Kim shot the low round of the day that included an eagle on the 10th hole for 9-under. With the seventh-place finish, the 20 year old all-but clinched his tour card of next season.

"It means everything," Kim said of the chance to earn his card. "Every day I've played golf, I thought about playing on the PGA Tour; it was nothing else. Today it could get a little emotional tonight, but it's definitely been a dream. It's been a road and hopefully next season, I'll be out here full-time."

But the story of the weekend was Finau, who led or co-led from the start, playing from in front after arguably the best 36-hole performance of his career that used the momentum of winning last week's 3M Open title and carried him to Detroit Golf Club. His confidence only improved after shooting 65 in the third round, and had elevated to a visible swagger as he rounded the turn on his final round — a round that was part competitive drive, part victory tour for his second consecutive win on the PGA Tour.

With the win, Finau shot up 10 spots from No. 17 in the FedEx Cup standings, a top-10 berth just two weeks before the FedEx Cup Playoffs tee off Aug. 11 at the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind in Memphis.

Finau will be back in Utah on Monday to participate in the Tony Finau Charity Golf Classic benefitting his foundation whose mission is to "inspire the next generation to discover, develop, and achieve their goals" at Oakridge Country Club in Ogden, part of the Utah Championship.

After he flies back to Utah on Sunday night, he's sure to receive a hero's reception — from his family, from his friends, and from advocates in the Utah golf community who have followed his career ever since he and his older brother were competing on the longest drive circuit as teenagers.

The last time he was on the Wasatch Front, Finau was a two-time tour winner — holder of a solid career, but not a winning career. Over the past nine days, he's doubled his victories on the PGA Tour — and with the playoffs around the corner, shows no sign in letting up.

But first, he's "extremely excited" for that pro-am in his native state.

"We have the opportunity to change lives of the kids that — I grew up in an area where they were less privileged, less fortunate, so to be able to give back to that community, my community and the state of Utah means everything to me," he said. "But I have amazing support from my sponsors, the people in Utah, a lot of Korn Ferry Tour players that are going to play in my event. I think Sungjae Im has played it, I think even Scottie Scheffler has played my event. So I handpicked these guys from the Korn Ferry Tour to play in my event, which is really cool.

"It gives my sponsors and all the amateurs that play an opportunity to play with potential superstars on the PGA Tour. I'm looking forward to it and hopefully raise a lot of good money for our charity."

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