Troy Merritt shoots 67 to win Quicken Loans National by 3 shots

Troy Merritt hits up to the second green during the final round of…

World number 180 Merritt, who fired a tournament-record 61 on Saturday, finished 72 holes at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club on 18-under 266 for a three-stroke victory over Fowler with Lingmerth third on 270.

“I wasn’t trying to make it”, Merritt said of his final birdie putt.

“I was waiting for the one moment, the one shot”.

As he made his way up to the clubhouse to sign his scorecard, he spotted his aunt and uncle and hugged them with tears in his eyes. Only one player in the field had a lower round than Merritt did on Sunday, when the course played its hardest. “When it happens, you’re not thinking”. “You do not keep in mind what your identify is”.

Few knew his name coming into this tournament.

Once he took the lead, he kept tabs on his position, playing with “the fear of being caught”. “The score that he put up being in the lead and what he did yesterday, to back it up with a solid round of golf – it’s what you’ve got to do to win”. In between, he made three birdies and just one bogey. He has 79 career PGA Tour titles, three shy of Sam Snead s all-time record, but has not won a title since the 2013 World Golf Championships Bridgestone Invitational and has not won a major since the 2008 US Open. When he Skyped his wife Saturday night, he told her a win would mean he wouldn’t be home for another two weeks, the lone thing that made it bittersweet.

Then again, we said that after the Masters.

What was a crowded leader board when the round started turned into a two-man race.

A bogey at the hard 12th proved to be the sole blemish as, while some observers may have expected this PGA Tour maiden to suffer with nerves over the closing stretch, Merritt produced the shot of his life at the par-three 16th for a tap-in birdie before sealing victory with a long-range putt at the final hole.

Merritt shot a 4-under 67 Sunday and finished his first career victory in 96 starts with a flourish, rolling in a 34-foot putt for birdie on the 72nd hole.

But the rest of Haas’s round was woeful.

Fellow American Rickie Fowler was the nearest to Merritt, but his seven-birdie round of 69 was blighted by four bogeys, which meant he was always unlikely to catch his compatriot.

Tiger Woods made a run at rivalry with birdies on 5 of his first 10 holes to get to 10 beneath, however with an enormous crowd following and shouting encouragement, he missed a Three-foot putt at No. 11, the primary of three bogeys in 4 holes.

Kevin Chappell, who shared the overnight lead, shot a 77 to finish at 8 under.

Rickie Fowler finished three strokes behind, while David Lingmerth, Justin Thomas and five others rounded out the top nine.

Fans primarily followed the penultimate pairing that included Rickie Fowler, leaving a relatively modest gallery for Merritt. “I couldn’t find it”, Woods said, adding that after starting with seven consecutive pars, he thought it might come at the par-5 eighth when his tee shot finally found the fairway.

Tiger Woods said he made “big strides” after recording just his second top-25 finish of the 2014-15 season.

“He went out there and earned it today”, Fowler said. “I was just giving him a hard time”.