Camilo Villegas closed with a bogey-free 65 on Sunday to win the Butterfield Bermuda Championship at 24-under, his fifth PGA Tour victory in his 388th start but the first since the 2014 Wyndham Championship 9 years, 2 months, 26 days (or 3,374 days) ago.
“Wow, it’s unbelievable to be honest. It feels unbelievable. Nine years, nine years where you kind of stop believing at times, but I never stopped waking up early and putting in the work.
“Life is interesting, it goes up and down both on the personal side and on the professional side. Just got to keep a path and you’ve got to keep your mind where it needs to be. Like I said, I’m a hard worker, I love working, I love having a purpose every morning and that’s kind of what I did.
“At the beginning of the year things were not going great, it was time to do a little swing change. I’ve never been too excited about big swing changes, but I trusted the guy I started working with, Jose Campra, and he told me he needed a year. I’m glad it took less than that, here we are.
“I was signing up for second stage of Q-School next week after a tough year. With my play last week finishing second in Mexico, I didn’t have to play second stage, but I was probably going to go play finals and here we are, fifth win on Tour.”
His 260 total ties the 72-hole tournament scoring record and his win earns him a two-year exemption and returns to the Masters and PGA Championship for the first time since 2015.
“I never felt so comfortable being in contention like I did the last couple weeks, to be honest. It’s kind of weird, it’s kind of strange. Even when I was in contention back in the day, yeah, a few years ago, 10 or more, I didn’t have this calmness. I’ve got to really analyze what happened the last couple weeks, try to replicate more often.
“I had a great time with my caddie and we tried to save a lot of energy, and how did we try to save energy was by not being so focused the whole time, just getting in and out and really going through my routine very, very specific and then coming out and just kind of relaxing and having a good time: I was really good at reacting to the missed putts or the lip-outs or anything, which I’m not used to being like that.
“Yeah, there was a calmness in me that I need to analyze and I need to try to keep, try to do it more often because obviously you saw the results and they were pretty good.”
He is the second player from Colombia to win on TOUR this season, joining Nico Echavarria at the Puerto Rico Open.
Sweden’s Alex Noren who had led after all three first rounds shot a 68 featuring five birdies and two bogeys to finish second at 22-under.
Germany’s Matti Schmid carded a 67 to finish third at 21-under, his career-best finish in his 35th start on Tour.
China’s Carl Yuan finished fifth at 19-under after closing with a 67.
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