Steele earns first tour win
Brendan Steele posted a final-round 1 under 71 for a four-day total score of 8 under 280, good enough to earn a one-stroke win over Charley Hoffman and Kevin Chappell at the Valero Texas Open. The rookie pocketed a cool $1.116 million, easily his biggest career payday, and earned a two-year exemption on tour. Brandt Snedeker finished sole-fourth at minus-6, while the trio of Pat Perez, Cameron Tringale and Fredrik Jacobson shared fifth, another shot back.The win for Steele made it two straight weeks that rookies have won on tour after Charl Schwartzel won the Masters a week ago. It was the first time that feat had been accomplished since 2002 when Jonathan Byrd and Luke Donald went back-to-back at the Buick Challenge and the Southern Farm Bureau Classic, respectively.
Steele also became the fifth first-time winner on the tour this season joining Jhonattan Vegas, D.A. Points, Gary Woodland and Schwartzel.
“It was a tough week all around,” Steele said. “It's a really tough golf course. When the wind gets blowing it makes it even that much more difficult.
I had a really good attitude this week. Been playing pretty well the last few weeks but I haven't been getting that much out of it. It's really because my attitude wasn't right.
“I was putting a lot of pressure on myself and make it a little bit too tough so we decided on this trip that we were just going to try to hit every shot as good as we could and not care about the outcome and, you know, just move forward if something bad happens, because that's usually in every round of golf, you're going to have something not go the way you wanted it to,” he added.
Steele parred his final 11 holes and credited his playing partners, Chappell and Tringale for helping him stay cool until he reached the fairway at the last. The three are friends and their final-round grouping gave them some familiarity with each each other because neither had won on tour until Steele closed the deal.
Steele’s victory also proved once again that there is a plethora of talent starting to find their place at the highest level of the game. Steele became the seventh player in his 20s to win this season, and fifth in the last seven events.
Steele won the Nationwide Tour Championship last fall and he spoke about how he thought that helped on Sunday.
“I definitely think it helped me,” he said. “Just the right mindset, really trying to stay away from the outcome on each shot and for the day. That's what I tried to do all week.
“And so if you tell yourself that it really, you know -- it's okay if you don't hit a great shot, let's try to line it up where we want it and let it rip and see what happens,” he added. “That's the kind of approach that we were taking rather than being worried about, okay, well, this is not good and that's not good. We got to keep it out of here. Hit a solid shot on line and let the chips fall where they may.”
Chappell’s runner-up position marked the first time rookies have finished 1-2 in a tour event since J.B. Holmes (1) and Camilo Villegas (T2) turned the trick at the 2006 Phoenix Open.
Chappell spoke about having fun with his friends, saying, “Yeah, it was fun. I know Brendan and Cameron well and played a lot of golf with them throughout our careers, whether it's Junior Golf, college golf and then last year on the Nationwide Tour a little bit.
“You know, it's nice to have someone in a group going through the same thing you're going through. You know, it was very a comfortable pairing for me,” he added.
It wasn’t a great day for defending champion Adam Scott as he struggled to a 76 and tied for 23rd.
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