Jason Kokrak wins star-studded CJ Cup for first PGA Tour title

NORTH LAS VEGAS – Jason Kokrak sure didn’t look like a desperate, veteran journeyman in search of his first PGA Tour title in Sunday’s final round of the CJ Cup at Shadow Creek.

Instead, he was far from trembling in an unaccustomed spot in the penultimate group and strode the fairways looking every bit the man who has been there before on a regular basis. He wasn’t the least put off when one of the members of the group, Jason Day, withdrew with a stiff neck on the second hole and forced Kokrak and then his lone playing partner, world No. 8 Xander Schauffele, to alter their pace of play surrounded by threesomes.

And Kokrak was all sorts of calm outdueling Schauffele and holding off the three players in the final group on the back nine.

Behind a scorching putter, Kokrak, 35 and ranked No. 53 in the world, cracked the winner’s circle for the first time in 232 starts on the PGA Tour as a professional with a bogey-free, course-record-tying, 8-under-par 64 to win by two shots.

With rounds of 70-66-68-64, Kokrak, who started the week as an 80-1 longshot to be victorious, finished at 20-under 268.

“Ten years out here on the PGA Tour’s been a long career so far, so to wait so long for my first win, it’s a pretty special thing,” Kokrak said. “I said this signing my scorecard, if you’re not nervous, you’re not alive. I definitely had some nerves going. A little scar tissue from previous missed wins here and there but called upon those. I think anytime that you’ve been out here for that length of time, you definitely have doubts in your mind.

“As good as my ball‑striking is and as hard as I’ve been working with my coach, Drew Steckel, a little short game work with Jeff Pierce, my caddie, David Robinson. I think between the team I’ve got in place, it was inevitable that it was going to happen. I just tried to go out there today, hit a lot of fairways, give myself a lot of opportunities and just let that first win come to me.”

En route to joining the PGA Tour fraternity of winners, Kokrak, who made six birdies in a seven-hole stretch starting on the fifth, led the field in strokes gained: putting and in the final round sank birdie putts of 7, 10, 6, 5, 18, 20, 17 and 3 feet. He added gut-check par putts from 4 on the 16th and 3 feet on the 17^th hole.

It helps that he’s played Shadow Creek at least 20 times as an ambassador for MGM Resorts, which owns the course. And he credited his caddie, David Robertson, for supplying him with good reads on putts all week.

“Very happy with how I’ve been putting and kind of paying off with all the work I’ve been putting in,” said Kokrak, whose best previous finish was second place on three occasions, the most recent coming in the 2019 Valspar Championship. “And I’ve played this golf course enough, I should know it by know.”