Jon Rahm produced a stunning 10-under-par 63 to overturn a seven-shot deficit and win the PGA Tour’s Tournament of Champions in Hawaii by two shots.
The Spaniard, who bogeyed the first, picked up five shots in four holes to overhaul Collin Morikawa, who stumbled with three bogeys on the back nine.
Morikawa, who led the field by six heading into the final round, closed with a one-under 72 to end on 25 under.
“I needed to play good and he needed to make a couple mistakes,” said Rahm.
“If you told me at the beginning of the round, after that bogey, I was going to do what I did I don’t know if I would have believed you.”
It was a third win in six starts for Rahm – after winning in Spain and Dubai late in 2022 – and an eighth PGA Tour title. He also collected $2.7m from the $15m (£11.8m) purse at Kapalua.
The Tournament of Champions, which had a limited field of 39 players, was the first of 13 events that have an ‘elevated’ status on this year’s PGA Tour schedule, giving them increased prize money and a demand on the top players to compete.
Rahm’s round started badly. The 28-year-old missed a seven-foot par putt on the first to fall eight shots behind Morikawa but had five birdies in his next eight holes to improve to 21 under par after nine.
However, Morikawa also had a solid front nine, with three birdies taking his score to 27 under at the turn.
Rahm, the 2021 US Open winner, then had three successive birdies from the 12th before carding an eagle three at the par-five 15th to move within one of the lead.
Moments later he was joint leader, benefiting from Morikawa thinning a bunker shot across the 14th green and dropping his first shot of the tournament.
“At that point I got in the thick of things and never did I think that going into my third shot on 17 I was going to have a one-shot lead,” said Rahm, who missed the green with his second shot on his penultimate hole.
“That’s when I had to change a bit of the mindset of chasing and needing birdies to, ‘let’s get this up-and-down, hopefully birdie 18 and give ourselves the best chance’.”
Rahm led because Morikawa dropped another shot on the 15th. He duffed a simple chip and then missed a seven-foot putt for par.
And his short game let him down again on the par-four 16th after a superb drive left him with a 55-yard pitch for his second. He misjudged the spin on his ball and it ended up 70 feet from the hole and he could only three-putt from there.
Rahm suddenly led by two and picked up another birdie on the 648-yard par-five last hole after finding the green in two shots and two-putting from 65 feet.
Morikawa also completed the final hole in four shots but his birdie proved scant consolation with Rahm completing the biggest comeback victory in the tournament’s history.
“You work so hard and you give yourself these opportunities,” said the 2021 Open Championship winner, who matched the PGA Tour record held by seven other players of squandering a six-shot lead in the final round.
“I just made three poor swings, really, at the wrong times. It’s never a good time to put a poor swing on it, but sometimes it works out and these never worked out.
“I don’t know what I’m going to learn from this week, but it just didn’t seem like it was that far off. It really wasn’t. Yeah, it sucks.”
Fellow Americans Tom Hoge (64) and Max Homa (66) were joint third on 23 under.
England’s US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick ended alongside Masters winner Scottie Scheffler – who could have returned to world number one with a higher finish this week – on 21 under after both carded three-under-par 70s.
