Throughout the final round Sunday at Waialae Country Club it appeared that the Sony Open in Hawaii would be decided by a head-to-head duel between two men. And it did. Just not the two men anyone expected.

Your winner of the year’s first full-field event on the PGA Tour is Canada’s Nick Taylor, who has never met a playoff he didn’t like. He defeated Nico Echavarria of Colombia on the second hole of sudden death for his third win in as many years—all in overtime. The winning stroke for birdie traveled less than three feet after Echavarria three-putted from 32 feet, missing a seven-footer on his second try. But the shot that drastically altered his fortunes (he had a 0.4 percent chance to win through 71 holes) was his chip shot from 59 feet for a gotta-have-it eagle on the par-5 home hole that tied Echavarria at 16-under 264.

“I’m a bit stunned to have it end this way,” a sweat-soaked and smiling Taylor said, speaking not only for himself but countless others following the proceedings on a breezy day in Honolulu.

Two of the others you could count, however, were J.J. Spaun and Stephan Jaeger. Playing together in the final group, the two appeared to separate themselves from a crowd of contenders until they suddenly forgot how to make birdies. They combined for exactly one over the last 10 holes, and that came from Jaeger finding paydirt from 31 feet at the 14th to join Spaun at 16 under. Neither birdied the two par-5 holes, nine and 18, and that proved their undoing when Jaeger bogeyed 16—quite a gutsy one, to be honest—after pumping a tee shot out of bounds, and Spaun bogeyed the par-3 17th following a fat bunker shot.

Two groups ahead, Taylor and Echavarria were just showing off. Echavarria got up and down from 87 feet from the left front bunker for a nifty birdie. Then Taylor worked his magic from the back of the green. He earned his fifth PGA Tour title and the $1.566 first prize with a coolness he had seemed to lose in the middle of the back nine when he missed consecutive four-footers for birdies that would have made his afternoon less stressful. Playing the 18th hole twice in the playoff, Taylor first sank a 10-footer for birdie on the first extra hole, which Echavarria topped from six feet, and then calmly pitched to (somewhat) gimme range from 46 yards on the second for the game winner.

A chip-in eagle to tie the lead!@NTaylorGolf59 comes up clutch at the last @SonyOpenHawaii. pic.twitter.com/tNeTa9xQKM

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) January 13, 2025

“You know, the chip-in on 18 was awesome. In that situation … all I was thinking was hole it. I felt like par or birdie wasn’t going to change a whole lot with Nico having a birdie chance there,” said Taylor, 36, who rose from 73rd to 29th in the world. “Read it great and went in, and in the playoff to have those two nice up and downs to hang in there. Nico was hitting it great all day and knew he wasn’t going to give it to me.”

Taylor and Echavarria closed with 65s while Jaeger had a 67 and Spaun 68.

Echavarria, 30, seemed to have the advantage on both extra holes only to see Taylor come up with the clutch shots that made the difference. He was hardly discouraged. “I’ve been working my ass off and I’ve been working hard,” he said. “It’s been really rewarding to see that things are falling their way. I’m having a pretty simple mentality of hit the best shot you can every time you step up. I’ve been doing that, and it’s been going well other than that last putt.”

Taylor also has applied himself the last few months. He won the WM Phoenix Open last February and then posted just one top-10 finish the rest of the year. He looked like a sure pick or qualifier for the International team in the Presidents Cup in Montreal until his poor finishing kick to the season. That work undoubtedly meant something when he was one over par through seven holes on Sunday before getting back into contention with a run of four straight birdies around the turn.

“Yeah, there is a lot of layers to that,” he said about the disappointments as 2024 unfolded. “Not making top 50 [in the FedEx Cup standings] I knew would make the next year. … Not making the Presidents Cup definitely hurt. I felt like my play … I had more myself to blame. I felt like I put Mike [Weir, International captain] in a tough situation. Yeah, on top of that I had to play more in the fall than I had originally planned and away from family a few times.

Maddie Meyer

“Put some work in in the offseason and really wanted to be ready to go,” Taylor added. “Not that you’re ever expecting necessarily to win right away out of the gates after some time off, but I knew my West Coast … because I was in the first two signature events, that my West Coast was going to be great and a lot of golf courses I played well on and enjoy.”

Getting in another playoff was a good omen, too. He seems to bear down more assiduously in that scenario.

RELATED: Here are the clubs Nick Taylor used to win the Sony Open

“I think I enjoy being in those moments,” he said after coming out on top in the sixth playoff in the last 10 years in the Sony Open. “For whatever reason my mind gets clear in those situations of the shot I’m just trying to hit. It’s kind of like a match play situation. I feel like I’ve always enjoyed match play when I was growing up and had success as well just trying to hit each shot at hand. I’ve worked on that the last couple years of why in those situations am I good and other situations where I am not consistent if I’m in 30th or something.”

Well, some guys just need a challenge.

This article was originally published on golfdigest.com