By ASSOCIATED PRESS
FORT WORTH (AP) — Davis Riley shot even-par 70 while playing in the final group Sunday, May 26, with Scottie Scheffler, and still won a subdued Colonial by five strokes over the world’s No. 1 player and Keegan Bradley for his first individual victory on the PGA Tour.
Riley finished at 14-under 266. Bradley shot 67, and Scheffler 71 on a day when he hit only seven of 14 fairways and didn’t have a birdie until the 13th hole.
After beginning the final round with a four-stroke lead, Riley gave up a stroke with a bogey on the second hole when he drove into the right rough and then hit into the bunker. But that was the closest Scheffler — or anybody else — would get with wind gusts of 20 mph and more blowing throughout the day.
The 27-year-old Riley’s only other PGA Tour victory came when he and Nick Hardy won the Zurich Classic team event in New Orleans last year. The Mississippi native’s win at historic Colonial, which had been completely restored since last year’s tournament, earned him $1,638,000, the traditional winner’s plaid jacket and a fully restored and modernized 1975 Stingray car.
The final round was played on the same day that Grayson Murray’s parents said their 30-year-old son took his own life Saturday, a day after the two-time tour winner had cited illness when withdrawing from the event with two holes left in his second round.
PGA OF AMERICA
BENTON HARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Richard Bland had time off from LIV Golf and made it pay off in a major way when he won the Senior PGA Championship in his senior major debut, closing with an 8-under 63 for a three-shot victory at Harbor Shores.
In a final round delayed by about an hour because of storms, Bland hit what amounted to the winning shot on the par-5 15th, an approach to 6 feet for eagle. That took him from one shot behind Greg Chalmers to a one-shot lead when Chalmers could only manage a par.
The storms finally arrived, and the 51-year-old Bland returned to make three pars and claim his first victory since the 2021 British Masters, the European tour title that unwittingly started Bland on this amazing ride.
Bland did not realize until last year the Senior PGA Championship offers a one-time exemption to players who have won on the European tour in the last five years. He couldn’t play because the Senior PGA was held the same week as LIV Golf Bedminster in New Jersey. But he asked about this year, and the PGA of America provided the invitation.
Bland won by three shots over Richard Green, who shot 65.
