Finau Wins PGA Tour's Northern Trust In Jersey City

JERSEY CITY, NJ —Tony Finau won the PGA Tour's 2021 Northern Trust tournament Monday at Liberty National Golf Course in Jersey City, beating Cameron Smith in a one-hole, sudden-death playoff a day after the tournament's final round had been postponed due to a tropical storm.

The Northern Trust is the first event in the three-week FedExCup playoffs.

Weather also delayed the start of Monday's round by four hours, and spectators were kept away. But the wait was nothing for the 31-year-old Finau, who had gone 1,975 days since his last -and only - PGA Tour win, at the 2016 Puerto Rico Open, according to the Associated Press.

In that time, Finau had made 142 starts on the tour, had eight second-place finishes - three of them losses in a playoff - and 39 top-10 finishes.

"It's hard losing, and it's hard losing in front of the world," Finau said after the tournament. "I've (lost) already a couple of times this year. That made me more hungry. If it doesn't discourage you, it makes you more hungry.

"You guys (the press) keep (asking) me,' when are you going to win again?' That makes me more hungry. It all equals up to now. It was time for me to win again."

Finau and Smith had been tied at 20 under after the completion of Monday's final round.

In the playoff, which was played on the 18th hole, Smith put his drive down the middle, while Smith's tee shot sailed over a retaining wall that separates Liberty National from the edge of the Hudson River.

Finau ended up with a par-4 on the hole.

Finau reached the sudden-death playoff thanks to 6-under 65 on Monday -including a career-best back nine - which helped him track down Jon Rahm, the world's No. 1 player. Rahm had a two-shot lead entering the back nine.

"I've played really nicely in big tournaments, but to turn in a 30 on the back nine of a (FedEx Cup) playoff event, trying to chase down the best player in the world, those are all things that will go in the memory bank," said Finau, who is from Salt Lake City.

The FedEx Cup playoffs continue this week as the top 70 ranked players compete in the BMW Championship at Caves Valley Golf Club in Maryland. From there, the top 30 players in the standings head to the season ending Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta.

According to the New York Post, this past weekend's tournament likely will be the last time top-level golf is played in the area until at least 2023 because there is no event in the New York market on the PGA Tour's 2022 schedule.