An Aloha Moment For Abbotsford’s Nick Taylor, Who Wins The Sony Open In Dramatic Fashion
BC's Nick Taylor Won His 5th PGA TOUR Title At The Sony Open In Hawaii - Image Credit Bryan Outram/BC Golf
By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf
For a good chunk of his PGA TOUR career, Nick Taylor flew under the radar. He was known as a steady, not spectacular, player who quietly went about his business.
Not anymore. Taylor has developed a flair for the dramatic. The bigger the moment, the better he plays. And when he gets in contention, Taylor just hits one clutch shot after another.
He did it again on a magical Sunday on the island of Oahu where Taylor chipped in for eagle on the 72nd hole and then beat Nico Echavarria of Colombia on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff to win the Sony Open in Hawaii.
Taylor hasn’t always been the most consistent player on the PGA TOUR, but when he gets in contention he seems to find another gear. “I think I enjoy being in those moments,” Taylor said in his winner’s news conference. “For whatever reason, my mind gets clear in those situations and I focus on the shot I am trying to hit.”
Taylor’s last three wins — the 2023 RBC Canadian Open, the 2024 WM Phoenix Open and the Sony — came in playoffs. “It’s kind of like a match play situation,” Taylor said. “I feel like I’ve always enjoyed match play when I was growing up and I had success as well just trying to hit each shot at hand. I’ve worked on that the last couple of years of why in those situations I am good and other situations where I am not consistent if I’m in 30th place or something.”
His Sony win is the fifth of his PGA TOUR career. Only two other Canadians — perhaps you have heard of Mike Weir and George Knudson — have more with eight apiece.
Taylor never led the tournament until he made a clutch up-and-down birdie on the second playoff hole to seal the win. He spent most of the week on the first page of the leaderboard and started the final round two shots back of the lead.
When he played his first seven holes of the final round in one-over par, Taylor acknowledged he really wasn’t thinking about winning. But he birdied his next four holes to get back into the hunt. Taylor thought he had lost his chance to win when he missed two four-foot putts for birdie on the 15th and 16th greens after brilliant approach shots. “If you’d asked me in that moment, I thought my chances of winning were pretty low,” he said.
But then came his 18th hole heroics. This one wasn’t quite as a dramatic as that 72-foot putt that won him the Canadian Open, but it was a shot Taylor will always remember.
His second shot into the par 5 18th hole at Waialae Country Club had rolled through the green. Echavarria had blasted his third shot out of a greenside bunker to kick-in distance for birdie that would get him to 16-under par. Taylor, who was 14-under at the time, knew he had to hole his 59-foot chip. So he did.
“All I was thinking was hole it,” Taylor said. “We were reading it a little left with the wind and slope. With five feet to go, it was one of those like, 'wind, don’t blow it too far left' type of things and it went right in. It was definitely one where I landed it pretty close to where I was trying to.”
Taylor won it on the second extra hole when he got up and down for birdie from 50 yards and Echavarria three-putted for par from the back fringe.
Image Credit Bryan Outram/BC Golf
The win moved Taylor up 44 spots to 29th on the Official World Golf Ranking. He now has a spot in this spring’s Masters, is exempt into all of this year’s Signature events and is exempt on the PGA TOUR through the end of the 2027 season. And, oh yeah, he earned a first-place cheque of $1,566,000. Taylor got to celebrate his win with his wife Andie, their two children and Taylor’s mom and dad, who had all made the trip to Hawaii.
His Sony win came just short of a year after his last win at the 2024 WM Phoenix Open. Taylor is hoping he can follow up this one with more consistent play. He had a miserable second half of 2024 and worked hard in the off-season to try and get this year off to a good start, Mission accomplished.
And about that consistency or lack thereof? Taylor was asked at his news conference about fellow Canadian Corey Conners, who is a model of consistency but only has two wins. He was asked if he’d rather have more consistency or does he like the trophies. Taylor smiled and replied: “I really love the trophies, but I would also love to be more consistent.”
Taylor’s strong showing at the Sony should not have come as a huge surprise. He had tied for seventh in 2023 and again in 2024 at Waialae, where he has now played in nine Sony Opens. “I felt like this has been a course that I really started to enjoy,” he said. “I see the lines really well on the greens. I’ve played them in the nine years in probably every wind condition possible, so really there are no surprises anymore.”
Just like no one should be surprised anymore when Nick Taylor wins on the PGA TOUR.
CHIP SHOTS: Surrey’s Adam Svensson tied for 30th at nine-under and made $52,137. Abbotsford’s Adam Hadwin tied for 59th at five-under and took home $19,314. Taylor, Hadwin and Svensson are all playing in this week’s American Express tourney in La Quinta, Calif.
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