Erik Van Rooyen secured his first PGA Tour win after a scintillating final round at the Barracuda Championship.
Erik Van Rooyen Sets Tournament Record In Maiden PGA Tour Win
Drama would follow though. Holding a three-point lead on the 72nd hole he would, in his words, produce “probably the worst shot I hit all week.” A pull hook left into the trees.
Clipping his seven-iron approach to 15-feet, the South African would roll in the subsequent birdie putt to a huge fist pump and roar.
The 50 point score from Van Rooyen was a new tournament record, with his five-point winning margin over Andrew Putnam giving him his first taste of success on the PGA Tour.
After becoming a dad only a month ago, the victory was a huge one for Van Rooyen, with the 31-year-old saying this after his win: "Valerie is obviously way too small to have any understanding of what just happened, but my wife (Rose) has been my rock. She's been absolutely amazing.
"She's been pretty much a single parent for three of the last four weeks, ever since we had her. Her parents were with her when I was playing The Open, but I've been gone three out of the four weeks. So, as I mentioned earlier, this goes out to my wife, Rose, and little Valerie."
With this victory, Van Rooyen has also secured a two-year exemption on the PGA Tour: "Obviously this was, in my mind, kind of the next step for what I wanted to achieve. I've got big dreams and aspirations, and winning on the PGA Tour was certainly part of that.
"It's massive. It's been a difficult sort of 18 months for me golf-wise. I haven't been playing well. There's been glimpses of it the last six months, but I haven't been able to put four good rounds together.
"I was well aware of the position I was in going into the playoffs, knowing that I've only got eight rounds left to make that cut and to win here this week, I mean, under the conditions and the pressure that I was under, I'm going to take so much confidence from this."
