Matt Wallace produces Sunday surge to win first PGA Tour title at Corales Puntacana Championship

By Sports Desk March 26, 2023

Matt Wallace finally made his PGA Tour breakthrough on Sunday after surging to the top of the leaderboard and securing the Corales Puntacana Championship.

Wallace had threatened to become a winner on the tour for years, with a T7 finish earlier this month at the Valspar Championship marking his fifth season in a row with at least one top 10.

He was one of the form players in the world back in 2018, winning four European Tour events over the course of 17 months, and he parlayed that form into a top-three finish at the PGA Championship and a top-12 result at the U.S. Open in his next start.

The Englishman had actually endured a rocky start to this season, making just two of his previous eight cuts heading into the event in the Dominican Republic, but he excelled at the picturesque Puntacana Resort's Corales Golf Course.

Wallace posted rounds of 67, 66 and 70 before closing with a six-under 66, rattling off four birdies in a row starting on the 13th hole to go from two behind to two ahead. In the process he tied for Sunday's round of the day, finishing with a winning score of 19 under.

Impressive 22-year-old Danish talent Nicolai Hojgaard finished alone in second place at 18 under, birdieing the 17th to pull to within one, before missing a birdie putt on the last hole that would have forced a playoff. American duo Sam Stevens and Tyler Duncan rounded out the top three, tied at 17 under.

The win means Wallace will leap up from 108th in the FedEx Cup standings into the top 50, while Wyndham Clark rose to 35th with his solo sixth finish, and Belgium's Thomas Detry's tie for eighth dropped him from 28th to 30th.

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    "I'm proud of today how we went out there and fought. I got off to a slow start and I was able to get some momentum and post a good round.

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    He continued: "Obviously I started the week well, and then I've obviously played decent over the weekend.

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