It got lost amid all the stars shooing up the leaderboard, but Eddie Pepperell and Jhonattan Vegas may have hit the putts of the 2019 Players Championship on Sunday at the famous 17th island green.
Pepperell walked his in from 50 feet -- as if he knew it was going down the entire time. And then Vegas holed out from a new record 69 feet, 7 inches. It's the longest putt in that hole's history by 10 feet. Bernard Langher made a 59 foot, 9 inch putt in 2008.
It bumped Vegas up the leaderboard, too, as both he and Pepperell finished in a tie for third and earned $725,000 each after both opened the event with 72s but closed with 66s.
"Absolutely mind blowing, simple as that," said Vegas of the putt. "I mean, it never crossed my mind that I was going to make such a long putt on such a phenomenal hole. But it's one of those things, that's kind of what you play golf for, to be in those kind of situations.
"Like I said, playing the 17th hole ... with that crowd, it just doesn't get any better. Obviously the type of memories that last a lifetime and something that I'll remember for forever."
"Weirdly, I didn't think the putt I had was too difficult," Pepperell wrote on his website. "The two breaks in the putt were blindingly obvious. I also knew it wasn't as fast as I remember seeing historically as I'd practiced a similar putt during the practice round. It was a case of reading the last half of the putt first, then picking the apex point, and then fully trusting your feel. Golf under pressure is often simply just trusting your feels. And breathing. Exhale fully.
"The crowds chanting 'EDDIE, EDDIE, EDDIE' after I holed the putt reminded me of a time when I was at school, oh, no it didn't. It felt strange being the centre of attention on such a massive stage."
