Danny Willett On Agonising Fortinet Championship Final Hole Three-Putt

Danny Willett tees it up in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews this week as he defends the title he won last year.

Before he does that, though, he had time to reflect on one that got away – his agonising capitulation to Max Homa in the PGA Tour’s Fortinet Championship earlier in the month. Willett appeared to have the title all but sewn up on the final hole. Even after Homa chipped in, it was Willett’s for the taking. However, he missed a three-foot birdie putt to win outright, then an equally short putt for par, which would have forced a playoff but instead handed Homa victory.

Willett was praised for his dignified manner in defeat and admitted that mindset had helped. He said: “Yeah, I don’t know how you else would handle it. Inside, you’re screaming at yourself. You can’t look at that week in a bad way. You still finished second. You still picked up a hell of a lot of points. Yeah, would you have liked to have rewound time for two minutes? Yeah. But we can’t do that. We’ve got to kind of take from it and when we are in that position, won’t happen. Like I say, take the positives from it.

Willett also pointed to a time when he took advantage to win against the odds - the 2016 Dubai Desert Classic when he edged out Andy Sullivan and Rafa Cabrera Bello. He said: “Every win that I’ve had, you always think there’s going to be a massive climax finish to an event. Dubai, I holed the putt to win back in 2016, and most of the time, people are tapping in from six inches to win. You know, it’s not - how that happened obviously was a little bit of a shock to the system at the time."

While Willett was the orchestrator of his downfall at Silverado, he admitted that of all the players who could have put himself in contention before his fateful three-putt, it was Homa. He said: "But yeah, I mean Max obviously - he’s 15th in the world. He’s a great player and he’s had a great year last year, coming in there defending champion and favourite. You know, not that it’s - not that it always happens, but if anyone was going to probably do it, it would have probably been him.”

While missing out to Homa in such a manner obviously came as a blow to Willett, there is arguably more at stake in this week’s tournament given it’s the third qualifying event for next year’s Ryder Cup. Willett admits that’s something he still harbours ambitions of being involved in. He said: “Obviously I want to go back there to Rome and help the team, and this is obviously another big week in that journey.”

Last year, Willett celebrated his birthday with a two-shot win. While his big day falls the day after the conclusion of this year’s tournament, if he follows up that display with a successful defence of his title, it will surely be the perfect early birthday present – and go a long way towards banishing the demons of that disastrous final hole at Silverado two weeks earlier.