{"id":924793,"date":"2026-10-12T00:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T00:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/924793\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T00:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T00:08:13","slug":"taylor-made-victory-puts-paid-to-aussie-challenge-australian-golf-digest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/924793\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor-made victory puts paid to Aussie challenge \u2013 Australian Golf Digest"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a case of so close yet so far for three Australian golfers as American Vaughn Taylor birdied the second playoff hole to defeat Alex Cejka and win his first PGA Tour Champions title in Florida.<\/p>\n

Australian Michael Wright finished one shot out of the playoff to claim outright third spot on Sunday (Monday AEDT).<\/p>\n

Tasmanian Mathew Goggin, who started the final round with a one-shot lead, and fellow Aussie Rod Pampling were among five players who shared fourth place.<\/p>\n

A well-earned victory \ud83c\udfc6 Vaughn Taylor gets it done on the second playoff hole to claim the title @FurykandFriends. https:\/\/t.co\/EgtmH7Dyv4<\/p>\n

\u2014 PGA Tour Champions (@ChampionsTour) October 11, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

After Taylor and Germany\u2019s Cejka parred the par-4 18th on the first \u200cplayoff hole, they replayed the hole at the Ocean Course at Hammock Beach.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Taylor stuck his approach shot about six feet from the cup and \u200crolled in the ensuing birdie putt.<\/p>\n

In his first season on tour after turning 50 in March, Taylor had three top-10 finishes across August and \u200cSeptember before his breakthrough this weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just wanted to finish strong and not give it away or do something stupid and lousy,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n

The American began the day three shots behind \u200cGoggin, who had to qualify for the tournament and was also aiming for his first victory on the veterans\u2019 tour.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Taylor rolled in \u2060five straight birdies from the 10th to the 14th on his way to a 4-under-par 68 to tie Cejka \u200bat 17-under 199.<\/p>\n

Vaughn Taylor shines for win No. 1 \ud83e\udd29 https:\/\/t.co\/mTVy5zrGez<\/p>\n

\u2014 PGA Tour Champions (@ChampionsTour) October 11, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Cejka had shot his second straight round of 65 and finished his bogey-free day with a birdie on the \u206018th to take the clubhouse lead at 17 under.<\/p>\n

He and Taylor had to \u200cwait and \u200bwatch Australian Wright, who took the outright lead at 18 under after birdies on the 15th and 16th. Wright needed par at the last hole \u200bto win in \u200cregulation, but was forced to take a drop after two poor shots.<\/p>\n

He failed to save bogey, which would have put him in \u200bthe playoff at 17 under, and carded a double-bogey six instead.<\/p>\n

Sticking it close \ud83c\udfaf Michael Wright drains the birdie to move to 18-under and grab a share of the lead @FurykandFriends. https:\/\/t.co\/AWQslvkkLZ<\/p>\n

\u2014 PGA Tour Champions (@ChampionsTour) October 11, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Wright (65, 66, 69) finished alone in third at 16 under.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fellow Aussies Pampling (64, 65, 72) and Goggin (66, 62, 73) tied for fourth with Americans Ben Crane and Ryan Armour, and Argentina\u2019s Angel Cabrera.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Taylor is projected to rise 16 spots to No.21 in the Charles Schwab Cup points race with one tournament left in the regular season. Following next week\u2019s SAS Championship, the top 72 players advance to the first leg of the three-week Schwab Cup playoffs.<\/p>\n

\"MathewMathew Goggin shared fourth spot at the PGA Tour Champions event in Florida. (Julian Smith\/AAP PHOTOS<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Goggin may have come up \u2060short but will get a valuable boost to No.74 in the points race, giving \u200bhim a chance to make the playoffs.<\/p>\n

The 52-year-old had a one-shot lead heading into the final day after carding a tournament record 10-under 62 in the second round.<\/p>\n

\u2013 with Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a case of so close yet so far for three Australian golfers as American Vaughn Taylor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":924794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,405163,85,2614],"class_list":["post-924793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-overseas-sport","tag-sports","tag-united-states-of-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=924793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/924794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}