Brandt Snedeker stood on the driving range beating balls, waiting to find out his fate. He had waited 2,821 days. What was a few more minutes?
After firing a final-round 5-under 65 at the ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic, Snedeker found himself tied for the lead with Mark Hubbard at 18 under. As Hubbard made his way down the 18th hole, Snedeker hit balls to prepare for a playoff. Hubbard pulled his drive on the par-4 18th into the right rough and laid up to 126 yards. His wedge shot came up 24 feet short of the hole, leaving him a big-breaking, downgrain putt to force a playoff. Snedeker hit a few balls and then watched as Hubbard’s putt missed low.
Then, Brandt Snedeker’s emotions started to flow.
He lightly tossed a head cover onto the driving range turf and buried his head into his caddie Heath Holt’s shoulder as the tears arrived.
“Your mom is smiling down on you right now, buddy,” Holt told Snedeker as the 45-year-old let his emotions go. “I’m so happy for you, brother. All your hard work. What a comeback. [Win] No. 10. Way to go, man. Awesome.”
It was a victory that got Snedeker, who started the year with conditional status, a two-year exemption. It also gets him into next week’s PGA Championship and the 2027 Players. It was also Snedeker’s first win since his mother passed away.
The road from win No. 9 to No. 10 has been brutal for the 2026 Presidents Cup captain.
Seven years, eight months and 21 days ago, Brandt Snedeker won the 2018 Wyndham Championship. Then, things fell apart. Snedeker underwent experimental surgery in 2022 to fix a joint in his sternum that was separating. It took him eight months to return to competition, but he wasn’t what he used to be. Since the COVID pandemic, Snedeker had missed 68 cuts and notched just five top 10s. In 2024, Snedeker made only 7 of 26 cuts and didn’t record a top 10. His game was a little better last season, where he had three top 10s, including a T7 at the Memorial. Still, he finished 126 in the FedEx Fall and entered the year on conditional status.
As Brandt Snedeker battled his body and his game, doubt crept in. It’s only human to think that, after an experimental surgery in your 40s, your best golf might be well behind you — that the time to figure out what’s next has finally arrived.
“There’s points in the last couple of years I didn’t think I could win again,” Snedeker said on Sunday. “My golf game wasn’t very good. My body wasn’t feeling great. Lots of self-doubt. Lots of, you know, what am I doing?”
But Brandt Snedeker didn’t want to throw in the towel. If the ride was over, that’s fine, but he wanted to empty the tank before he rang the final bell. It turns out, Brandt Snedeker still had more to give. He just had to dig it out.
“I did the only thing I knew how to do, get back to work,” Snedeker said. “That’s all you can do. Quit looking around for solutions and look for answers; that’s what I tell people all the time. I don’t want excuses. I need solutions for problems. The solution was to get back to work and do what I love to do. And every time I did it, I kept getting a little bit better and a little bit better and a little bit better and my confidence started growing, and I felt like I could play.”
Slowly, Snedeker’s game started to come back. It arrived in spurts. A good round here and there. A good result every once in a while. Then, he started to piece things together. He made a putter switch earlier this year and rode it into contention at the Valspar. A shaky Sunday cost him a chance to win there, but his confidence was back. The self-doubt gone.
On Sunday, Snedeker started the day four shots back of Hubbard but rose up the board with five birdies in his first 15 holes. He missed a five-footer for birdie at 16 but then poured in a 20-foot birdie on 17 to take the lead by one. As he orchestrated a Sunday charge, Brandt Snedeker kept telling himself to “play fearless.” He has been through so much to get to this point, to be back in contention on the PGA Tour. The hard part was already done.
“It’s the easiest thing to do, because what do I have to be scared of at my age out here?” Snedeker said. “You know, but it’s the hardest thing to do, because you want to be in control of everything. You want to hold on as tight as you can to some of these things. Playing fearless means you can’t control everything. You got to let it go and to not worry about the outcome. What’s the worst thing that’s going to happen? I’m going to lose the golf tournament. Let it go.”
He arrived at the 18th tee believing 19 under, the number he was currently at, would be good enough to win. A par would seal it. But a sloppy bogey, his only one of the day, followed, and Snedeker was left to sweat things out on the Dunes Golf and Beach Club driving range.
He worked on his driver after a shaky swing on 18 led to a bogey he thought would cost him the tournament. He thought about the seven years since his last win and the four since his surgery. He hit ball after ball as Hubbard tried to navigate his way home.
Then Hubbard missed, and Brandt Snedeker’s long journey back ended on a driving range in Myrtle Beach.
“It means everything to me,” a teary-eyed Snedeker said. “To not have my card the last couple of years, to be struggling to do what I love, you know, to still have a passion to play this game the way I want to play it and to show people how I can still do it. … I knew I was playing well. I just hadn’t been able to put it all together. Hopefully it shows my family, my kids, something.
“This is probably as emotional as I’ve been winning a golf tournament before, for sure. I’ve been through so much since the last time this happened, so very grateful, very appreciative of it and try to take it all in.”
As Holt delivered his message to an emotional Snedeker, the 45-year-old mumbled words while pressed into his caddie’s shoulder, still trying to come to terms with achieving something that, at times, only he thought was possible.
Asked what he told Holt as his emotions overcame him, Snedeker paused and looked off toward the course that became the site of his 10th career win, one that came with a different meaning than the other nine.
“Just that I love the man,” Snedeker said.
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