Daniel Berger Wins Charles Schwab Challenge

The American beat Collin Morikawa in a playoff to win on the PGA Tour for the first time in three years

Daniel Berger Wins Charles Schwab Challenge

The PGA Tour has its first winner in 13 weeks after Daniel Berger outlasted the field to win the Charles Schwab Challenge.

It seemed like nobody wanted to win the event with so many players coming close towards the end, but it was Berger who finished strong with a bogey-free back nine including a birdie on the 18th.

Berger's birdie on 18 got him in the clubhouse at 15 under, which was matched by young American Collin Morikawa and looked like it would be matched, too, by overnight leader Xander Schauffele.

Watch: Berger's birdie putt on 18 -

Schauffele had a topsy-turvy back nine but looked to have rescued his chances of victory after a 31 footer for bogey on 14.

He then holed from 26ft on the next for birdie to get back to 15 under before missing from three feet at the 17th with a horseshoe-lip-out.

Watch: Schauffele's missed putt on 17

The four-time PGA Tour winner's birdie effort on 18 was left just in the jaws, coming up a roll short.

He must have felt that he let one slip away.

Justin Rose and Bryson DeChambeau also narrowly missed their birdie chances on the final hole to finish in T3rd with Schauffele and Jason Kokrak, who shot 64 on Sunday.

Morikawa, looking for his second pro win in a year, hit his approach to within 6ft on the 18th but his putt to win the tournament edged by and a playoff was needed.

Whilst Berger hit a lovely long iron down the fairway and 9 iron just over the pin off the back edge on the first playoff hole, Morikawa pushed his tee shot, punched it out near the green and the played a sublime pitch to three foot but missed the putt to hand Berger the title.

Watch: Morikawa's missed putt in the playoff -

It is Berger's third PGA Tour victory and they have all come in the second month of June after his two previous FedEx St Jude titles in Memphis.

The 27-year-old Floridian has now had 28 consecutive rounds under par on the PGA Tour, which is the longest active streak.

He also picks up his good form pre-lockdown after three consecutive top-10s.

Berger, who reached a career-high 18th in the world in June 2017, had dropped to 160th in January this year after battling with a wrist injury and poor form.

He has clearly put a lot of work into getting his game back to where it is today, and the win moves him up to 31st in the world with the Official World Golf Ranking now back up-and-running.

"I think when I won my first couple times, I took it a little bit for granted thinking that every year it was just going to be easy and you'd have that chance to win, but it's tough out here," Berger said.

"It's cut-throat, and the best players in the world every week are showing up. I worked my butt off the last year to be in this position, and I'm just glad it all paid off.

"I'm just so proud of the way that I battled today and proud of how much work I've put in over the last couple weeks and even in the last year.

"It's finally paying off, so I'm just really excited."

Charles Schwab Challenge Leaderboard:

1 Daniel Berger -15

2 Collin Morikawa -15

3 Xander Schauffele -14

3 Bryson DeChambeau -14

3 Justin Rose -14

3 Jason Kokrak -14

7 Bubba Watson -13

7 Patrick Reed -13

9 Gary Woodland -12

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