BEECHWOOD, Ohio (AP) - Kramer Hickok completed a wire-to-wire victory in the DAP Championship, beating Hunter Mahan and Matt Jones by three strokes Sunday in the second of four Web.com Tour Finals events.
Playing to improve his PGA Tour status after earning one of 25 cards from the Web.com Tour’s regular-season money list, Hickok shot his second straight 2-under 68 to finish at 14-under 266. He matched the Canterbury Golf Club record Thursday with a 63 and had a 67 on Friday.
“Wire-to-wire has been one of my goals,” said Hickok, the first Web.com player to accomplish the feat this season. “Not only to win, but to face that pressure being on top of the leaderboard every single day and know that you can play to your best ability is one of the things that I wanted to come to in my practice and the mental work that I do. It’s been a long way coming. Earlier in the year, I kind of fell back when I had the lead and felt a little uncomfortable. I still did today, but it’s nice to be able to put up a good round.”
PGA Tour star Jordan Spieth’s former teammate and housemate, Hickok earned $180,000 for his first tour victory to push his season total to $373,635. He has jumped from 23rd to second among the 25 regular-season qualifiers in the first two tournaments, earning a series-best $198,000. The 26-year-old former University of Texas player was the Canadian tour player of the year last season, winning twice.
Six-time PGA Tour winner Mahan and Jones each shot 67. They wrapped up PGA Tour cards, each earning $88,000. Jones is fourth in the series standing with $112,000, and Mahan fifth with $102,500. Last year, Seamus Power took the 25th and final card with $40,625.
The series features the top 75 players from the Web.com regular-season money list, and Nos. 126-200 - Jones was 151st, Mahan 159th - in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup standings. Hickok and the other top-25 finishers on the Web.com money list are competing against each other for tour priority, with regular-season earnings counting in their totals. The other players are fighting for 25 cards based on series earnings, with Seth Reeves, Stephan Jaeger, Max Homa and Denny McCarthy also wrapped up tour cards Sunday.
Sangmoon Bae, a two-time PGA Tour winner, tied for sixth at 9 under after a 70. He earned $33,500 to jump to 12th with $38,156.
Hickok lived with Spieth the last few years until recently moving out because Spieth is getting married.
“In 2015, he had a year like Tiger Woods,” Hickok said. “He won five times and two majors and I’m seeing what he’s doing first hand. I’m comparing myself to him and saying, ’This is what he does to reach the highest level and I’m going to do that and twice as much.’ If I can do that, I can catch up to what these other guys are doing and I just tried to outwork him. I was learning from what he was doing.
“He’s getting the most out of every hour and I started to develop my practice that way. Being in that house with him for two to three years, I don’t think I’d be holding this trophy if I wasn’t.”
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