White Sulphur Springs, WV – Jonas Blixt endured a lengthy weather delay on Sunday and fired a 3-under 67 to win the Greenbrier Classic as darkness descended.
Entering the final round four strokes behind overnight leader Johnson Wagner, Blixt finally teed off just after 5 p.m. ET after rain halted play at the Old White TPC Course for three-plus hours.
When the skies cleared, Blixt countered five birdies against two bogeys in fading light, taking the lead for good with a birdie at the par-4 16th. The 29-year-old Swede parred his final two holes and finished the tournament at 13-under-par 267 for his second PGA Tour win in his 38th start.
"Just so many dreams come true," Blixt said in a post-round televised interview. "Just one week and the whole year kind of turns around."
Wagner carded a 73 and suffered his first loss on Tour when holding the 54- hole lead. He finished in second place alongside Jimmy Walker (71), Matt Jones (68) and Steven Bowditch (68) at 11-under.
While he failed to secure his fourth PGA Tour win, Wagner did snap out of a recent slump which saw him post six missed cuts and a withdrawal in his previous seven events.
Defending champion Ted Potter, Jr. shot 67 and tied for sixth with Brian Stuard (67) and Pat Perez (69) at minus-9.
Bill Haas, the winner of last week's AT&T National, shot 70 and tied for ninth with seven others at 8-under.
Wagner, who previously maintained his 54-hole lead at both the 2008 Shell Houston Open and the 2011 Mayakoba Golf Classic, held off Walker for much of the evening as Blixt quietly ascended the leaderboard.
Walker began the final round two back of Wagner and got within a single stroke when the latter 3-putted for bogey at the second.
The margin was back to a pair when Walker himself 3-putted at the third, but he rebounded at the fifth, sticking his approach and draining the birdie effort to again get within a stroke.
Wagner answered at the sixth with a bending 18-footer for birdie, but a new challenger emerged in Blixt, who used birdies at Nos. 3, 9 and 10 to get within a shot.
Around the turn, Wagner bogeyed two of his first four holes, and Blixt pulled even when he wrapped a pair of bogeys around a birdie at the 12th.
The tie lasted until Blixt rolled home a 6-footer for birdie at the 16th to reach 13-under, and moments later Wagner bogeyed the 15th to drop to 11-under.
From there, Blixt needed only to par out. And he did, 2-putting from 45-feet at the last to hit the clubhouse up two.
Both Wagner and Walker were a pair back, and neither could make up the difference over their final two holes.
"I'm just so happy because now I get to go home and see my family," Blixt continued.
NOTES: Blixt earned an invitation to the Masters with his victory ... He made just eight cuts in 16 events prior to this tournament ... His previous PGA Tour win came at the 2012 Frys.com Open ... Bowditch posted the second top-10 finish of his PGA Tour career in his 92nd start ... No 54-hole leader has won this event in its four-year history.
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