VALLARTA, Mexico, April 30, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — Utah golfer Tony Finau continued his winning ways at the Mexico Open, earning his sixth career PGA Tour victory and fourth win in the past nine months.
Finau also got a little redemption against the world’s top-ranked golfer, Jon Rahm, who edged then-runner-up Finau at the event a year ago.
This time, Finau topped Rahm by three strokes at Vidanta Vallarta for his fourth victory in a stellar 18-start, 280-day stretch for the former West High School golfer. He shot a bogey-free, 5-under 66 in Sunday’s final round to finish the tournament at 24-under 260.
“I played great golf all week,” Finau told reporters after his final round. “That’s something that I wanted to do. Every day I was striking the golf ball really nicely, but the biggest thing was I was able to convert the birdie putts that I really needed to and also some of the par saves that were momentum swingers for me.”
Finau credited his second-place finish at the Mexico Open last year as the springboard to the most successful stretch of his professional career.
“This tournament propelled me, I think, into the season that I had last year,” he said. “This was the first high finish that I had all season. … I was playing not very good golf, and then I make a run on Sunday, and after that I played great golf throughout the rest of the season. So to get this win was huge and hopefully propels me to do more great things as the season unfolds.”
Finau, now in his ninth year on the PGA Tour, becomes the fourth player with multiple wins this season, joining Rahm, Scottie Scheffler and Max Homa. Finau earned nearly $1.4 million for the victory and moved up to fourth in the FedEx Cup standings.
The Lehi resident’s previous PGA Tour victories came at the Houston Open in November 2022, Rocket Mortgage Classic and 3M Open in July 2022, The Northern Trust in August 2021 and Puerto Rico Open in March 2016. He also earned a Web.com Tour victory at the Stonebrea Classic in August 2014.
