Nick Taylor steals the 2025 Sony Open in Hawaii with chip-in eagle, two playoff birdies

Nick Taylor is blessed with the clutch gene.

Two years ago, the Canadian won his national open with a 69-foot putt to win a playoff. Last year, he birdied the 72^nd hole to force a playoff at the WM Phoenix Open and then claimed the title. And for the third straight year, when he sniffed the lead, Taylor pounced, chipping in for eagle at the 72^nd hole and making a pair of birdies in a playoff to win the 2025 Sony Hawaii Open over Nico Echavarria.

“I feel like I can rise to the occasion and it's pretty fun,” Taylor said.

He closed in 5-under 65 at Waialae Country Club in Honolulu on Sunday to claim his fifth PGA Tour title.

“I'm a bit stunned this worked out this way,” he said.

The 36-year-old Taylor entered the final round two strokes back but was 1 over through the first seven holes on Sunday and said winning wasn’t on his mind. But Taylor carded four birdies in a row starting at No. 8 to join the trophy chase. When he missed two short birdie putts at Nos. 15 and 16, Taylor's fate seemed seal until he pulled a rabbit out of his hat, chipping in for eagle from 59 feet behind the green at the last to tie for the lead at 16 under.

“All I was thinking was hole it,” Taylor said. “I felt like par or birdie wasn't going to change a whole lot with Nico having a birdie chance there. Read it great and went in.”

Early on, Echavarria seemed equally unlikely to be a playoff participant after making bogey on the first two holes of the final round. But he bounced back to birdie half of his remaining holes, including two of the final three to shoot 65 and finish at 16-under 264.

For much of the final round, it appeared to be a two-horse race between 54-hole leader J.J. Spaun and Stephan Jaeger, who tied the lead with four holes to play, draining a 31-foot birdie putt at No. 14 to reach 16 under. But Jaeger made a bogey when he drove left out of bounds at 16 and failed to birdie the last. He closed in 67 and tied for third with Spaun, who failed to make a birdie after the eighth hole and lost the lead with a bogey at 17. He missed a 10-foot birdie putt at 18 to join the playoff and signed for a final-round 68.

Since his WM Phoenix Open victory last year, Taylor had played 23 events and had recorded zero top 10s as an individual. But this week he ranked first in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green and he was Mr. Clutch in crunch time yet again.

In the playoff, he drained a 10-foot birdie putt to extend the playoff to a second hole. Returning to play 18 again, he drove in to a left fairway bunker and couldn’t reach the green in two. Echavarria blasted his second shot at the par 5 to the back fringe and faced a 40-foot eagle putt. He left it 7 feet short and missed his birdie putt to the right.

“I misjudged the lag putt on the last hole. I didn't think it was going to be that slow. Didn't consider the wind,” Echavarria explained. “The wind kind of held it and my lag putting today was a little off which is a strength of mine. But, I mean, just one bad putt can't define a great week.”

Taylor pitched from 46 yards to inside 3 feet and knocked in the birdie putt for the win, improving his record in playoffs to 3-0.

“I think I enjoy being in those moments,” he said. “For whatever reason my mind gets clear in those situations of the shot I'm just trying to hit.”

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Nick Taylor wins 2025 Sony Open with chip-in eagle, 2 playoff birdies