Golf roundup: Taylor Moore delivers surprise, tops Jordan Spieth, Adam Schenk at Innisbrook

Taylor Moore delivered the clutch shots to move into contention, closed with a 4-under 67 and won the Valspar Championship on Sunday in Palm Harbor, Florida, when he avoided the mistakes that cost Jordan Spieth and Adam Schenk.

In only his second year on the PGA Tour, the 29-year-old who grew up outside Oklahoma City is now headed to the Masters next month.

He was on the practice range preparing for a playoff and missed a wild finish on the Copperhead course at Innisbrook.

Spieth was tied for the lead when he sent his tee shot into the water on the 16th and managed to stay in the game by getting up-and-down from 163 yards to salvage bogey. On the par-3 17th, which yielded only two birdies all day, Spieth hit 4-iron to 6 feet — only to miss the birdie putt.

The real heartbreak belonged to Schenk, whose wife flew down to Florida for the final round a month before she is due with their first child. Schenk holed a 70-foot birdie putt on the 12th hole. He made tough par saves on the 16th and 17th holes to stay tied.

On the 18th, however, he pulled his tee shot to the left. It was roughly the same line as Moore had hit his tee shot earlier, only Schenk's ball rolled through the gallery and stopped next to a pine tree.

His only shot was hitting an inverted gap wedge left-handed, and it was a dandy, shooting across the fairway into the rough. His third shot came up just short of a ridge and rolled onto the fringe 40 feet away. The par putt to force a playoff hit the hole, but had too much pace and hopped out.

Schenk, playing for the 10th consecutive week so he can take time off when his son is born, closed with a 70.

Spieth was entertaining as ever. He made a 10-foot birdie putt at the par-5 14th to regain a share of the lead with Schenk. But his worst swing of the day came at the worst time, the 16th hole with water down the right side.

Spieth made a 15-foot bogey putt, only to miss the great birdie chance on the next hole — no one hit it closer than his shot all day — and then his approach to the 18th missed by about a foot of getting to the top shelf for a good look at birdie. He missed a par putt on the 18th that was worth FedEx Cup points and money, signed for a 70 and tied for third with Tommy Fleetwood.

Fleetwood (70) also had a share of the lead on the back nine. His round came undone on the par-5 14th hole when he went for the green in two. He pulled it left and caught a brutal lie in the downslope of the sand. He could only advance that in the big bunker, blasted out to about 15 feet and missed the par putt. He never caught up again.

No one was paying all that much attention to Moore until the 29-year-old who played at Arkansas started hitting one quality shot after another. He stuffed his approach to 2 feet on No. 12 for a birdie.

He effectively won the tournament with one great swing and one great putt. On the par-3 15th, he took aim at the back right pin to 6 feet and made birdie to get within one shot of the lead. And then he holed a 25-foot birdie on No. 16 to join Schenk in the lead.

Moore got up-and-down for par with a long bunker shot on the 17th, and he two-putted from about 70 feet just off the green at the 18th to finish at 10-under 274.

And then he won while warming up on the range for a playoff that never happened.

The victory for Moore was worth $1,458,000 and moved him to No. 9 in the FedEx Cup standings. Along with a trip he might not have been expecting to the Masters, he gets in the PGA Championship. He moved from No. 103 to just inside the top 50 in the world.

Ernie Els kept making birdies no matter how he gripped the putter Sunday, and it carried him to a 6-under 65 to win the Hoag Classic and deny Bernhard Langer a chance at setting the career victory mark on the PGA Tour Champions in Newport Beach.

Els started the final round five shots behind Langer when the big South African rolled in three straight birdie putts to get in the mix, and he closed it out with a 65-yard bunker shot to 12 feet and a birdie on the 18th hole about the time Langer began to falter.

Langer has 45 career wins on the PGA Tour Champions, tied for the most with Hale Irwin. The 65-year-old German began the final round with a one-shot lead and picked up an early birdie. He was still tied for the lead when he made two bogeys on the back nine, and failed to make birdie on the par 5s.

Langer finished with a 2-over 73 and tied for seventh, three shots behind. He is in the field next week in Rancho Mirage, California, where he gets another shot at the record.

Matthew Baldwin claimed his maiden title on the European tour in style Sunday by storming to a seven-shot victory at the SDC Championship in St. Francis Bay, South Africa.

Baldwin finished with a 4-under 68 on the St. Francis Links course for 18 under overall as his challengers fell away.

There was no pressure on him as he came home but Baldwin still collected five birdies and just one bogey in his final round for a first win 11 years after he first earned his card to play on the European tour.

The Englishman had to put his career on hold in 2015 because of illness and lost his card the following year. His comeback to the tour was then delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and he said his long-awaited victory was dedicated to his stepfather, who died last year.

Danny Lee birdied his final two holes for a 2-under 69 and then won LIV Golf Tucson on the second hole of a four-man playoff on Sunday by making a 25-foot birdie putt from off the 18th green for his first win in nearly eight years.

It was the second playoff in LIV Golf since the Saudi-funded series began last year. Dustin Johnson won the playoff outside Boston last year.

Lee finished at 9-under 275 and got into the playoff with Carlos Ortiz (65), Brendan Steele (70) and Louis Oosthuizen (70). Oosthuizen bogeyed the par-5 17th to fall one behind, only to birdie the 18th to join the playoff.

Lee nearly squandered a great chance to win on the first playoff hole when he put his approach 5 feet from the hole on No. 18 on the first extra hole. He pushed it to the right.

Ortiz was eliminated after the first extra hole when he went long off the 18th green, chipped to 6 feet and missed the par putt.

Going back to the 18th hole, Lee again looked as though he wasted a good opportunity when his approach from the fairway missed the green to the right, leaving him a tough spot with the pin all the way to the right side of the green.

Oosthuizen and Steele both missed long birdie putts. Lee chose to use putter, even though he was some 10 feet off the green. He gave it a rap and it was going fast when it rattled against the pin and disappeared for the winner.