Minnesota’s Brian-Kurt Kitayama ended a hoarse weekend in the final round of Sunday, winning the 3m Open Sunday to beat Sam Stevens once for his second PGA Tour victory.
Kitayama scored a career-best and tournament-recorded 60 points on Saturday, entering the final round of six of the last eight holes to build a mat on a 91-degree afternoon in TPC Twins.
“This start can help you solve it,” Kitayama said. “The last round, the second lasting group, there must be some nerves.”
Kitayama brought bogey to the par-3 17th hole for the third straight day, which narrowed his lead in the second match. Stevens is a group ahead, failing to reach the 5th 18.
After entering the close distance of the green space bunker in the closed hole, Kitayama safely blasted to 18 feet, easily piercing twice, ending with a 231 shot, with his older brother Daniel only winning the second time this season for the second time this season.
“He helped me stay calm and make good decisions,” Kitayama said. “It just helped keep my family on the bag.”
Matt Wallace, David Lipsky, Pierceson Coody and Jake Knapp tied for third with three points.
Kitayama, who previously won the Arnold Palmer Invitational in 2023, scored a 500-point improvement in the FedEx Cup standings to make the top 70 and earned a spot in the playoffs. He is expected to jump from 110th to 53rd.
Kitayama tied for sixth in last year’s 3m Open, missing seven layoffs this season. He tied for five times on John Deere Classic and CJ Cup Byron Nelson. The victory is expected to take his world rankings from 97th to 39th.
The 32-year-old is in Chipo, California, and his approach game is the main one. The last of his last game of 20 birdies over the weekend was the 14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-
Stevens continued his strong season with five birdies in the last nine games, including three top three. He ranks second in the Farmers Insurance Open. The 29-year-old from Fort Worth, Texas, is still seeking his first win, but the game ended down to drop him from No. 44 in the FedEx Cup to No. 29 with one game left in the regular season.
“With Kurt shooting 29 on the front nine, like, I was six, seven at the time. “I really don’t think the back nine had a lot of nerves, it’s good. Usually I’ll be nervous, so today I’m having a lot of peace there. ”
Knapp played with Stevens and argued until his second shot in the 18th splash into the water, which made his only bogey in the third top five of the year.
Akshay Bhatia and Thorbjorn Olesen are co-leaders entering Sunday, but the final pairing was disappointing. Bhatia scored 75 and tied for 25th, with Olesen hitting 73 and falling to the No. 14 six-game winning streak, including first-round leader Adam Svensson.
Svensson played against Kitayama on 60 Thursday two days later and rebounded from the 75-year-old game on Friday with a 68-65 weekend.
Defending champion Jhonattan Vegas won the best game (67) in the game and ranked 44th with a lead under 11.
