It wasn’t the final round that Irish fans were hoping for at the Valspar Championship – in fact it was anything but from a Seamus Power perspective as he began leaking oil early and limped home in 76, burning FedEx Cup points, burning prizemoney and, in all likelihood, burning his chances of making it back to Augusta National along the way.
And, on paper at least, a win for Peter Malnati does little to stir the interests in the wake of back-to-back wins by the world number one, both of which came against all the PGA Tour’s big guns, but in this case, paper doesn’t tell the full story.
Most people hear the word journeyman and assume it’s meant as a slight, but when it comes to PGA Tour professionals, a journeyman career is an incredible achievement in itself. This is Malnati’s 10th year on Tour, and despite never finishing than 86th in the end-of-season FedEx Cup rankings, he’s retained his playing privileges in all but one of those years. That year was his first on Tour, and he bounced straight back via the Korn Ferry Tour, or the web.com Tour as it was then called.
That second year back saw him get his first PGA Tour win, albeit at the Sanderson Farms Championship held opposite the WGC event in Shanghai, and though that win provided job security for the following two seasons, it’s been a grind since.
Last year he played 35 times without making it into any of the four majors and still only finished 116th in the FedEx Cup rankings, he’s missed more cuts than he’s made in his career, and he’s only ever played in three major championships. But now he’s a two-time PGA Tour winner, set to make his Masters debut, and this week’s earnings alone are greater than he’s taken home in any of the nine entire seasons prior.
But it would take an extremely cynical mind to suggest that the cheque of $1.5 million and change was anywhere near his mind when the highly emotional Malnati spoke to NBC’s Kira Dixon in the immediate aftermath.
“You wonder if you’re ever going to do it again,” he said, in a faltering voice through tears while cradling his young son in his arms, “because it’s hard, and in the nine years since my first win, it’s gotten a lot harder too. You look at the level of talent out here, guys coming out when they’re 20 years old and they’re ready to play on this stage, and they’re so good. It’s just, you just wonder, so to have this moment, it feels so amazing.
After paying tribute to his long-standing caddie and his wife, he provided a glimpse into the week-to-week struggles of the ‘journeyman’ pro.
“Life is hard,” he admitted, “it’s obviously glamourous at times like this, and this is my dream job and it’s absolutely amazing, but life is really, really hard too when you’re trying to live this lifestyle and have two kids and be what you want to be, it’s really hard. But my wife has been amazing, I have my mom here and my two young boys, it’s amazing. It just feels so good.”
The win came courtesy of a four-under final round, coming from two off the pace in a three-way tie for second, but despite his limited exposure to championship contention on Sundays, he played with the composure of a man for whom it is routine, recovering from an early bogey and missed opportunities on both of the par-5s to birdie five of his final 13 holes, including an all-important ‘two’ on the par-3 17th which took him a shot clear of Cameron Young, who, unbeknownst to Malnati, was in the process of three-putting 18 to leave the 36-year-old with a two shot lead playing the last.
With bogey enough, his birdie putt came to rest on the lip and the tap-in par putt was cue for the emotional walls to breakdown, even though both Power and Keith Mitchell were coming behind.
For the final pair, it was a case of each dragging the other down as a nervy start from both set about leaderboard freefalls, and the Waterford man would eventually end the week tied for 26th at -3.
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