{"id":47986,"date":"2021-03-21T21:13:02","date_gmt":"2021-03-21T22:13:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=47986"},"modified":"2021-03-22T03:05:19","modified_gmt":"2021-03-22T03:05:19","slug":"jones-earns-masters-spot-with-career-changing-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=47986","title":{"rendered":"Jones earns Masters spot with 'career-changing' win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia's Matt Jones<\/a> has recorded his second win on the PGA Tour, claiming the Honda Classic by five shots and earning a start in next month's Masters tournament at Augusta.<\/p>\n

Ranked 83rd in the world, Jones took a three-shot lead into the final round, and played near-flawless golf to shut out any potential challengers.<\/p>\n

A birdie putt at the difficult 16th put the result beyond doubt, Jones finding the bottom of the cup from nearly five metres and stretching his lead to five shots.<\/p>\n

The victory means Jones qualifies for The Masters for just the second time in his career, having previously missed the cut in 2014. That appearance came just a week after his only other PGA Tour win, having beaten Matt Kuchar in a playoff at the Houston Open.<\/p>\n

\"Matt<\/p>\n

Jones opened the week by equaling the course record of 61<\/a> in the first round, adding rounds of 70-69-68 to finish at 12-under and collecting the first prize of $1.63 million.<\/p>\n

He choked up when asked about the seven year gap between his two victories in the United States.<\/p>\n

"I've had some tough times in between that and now," he said.<\/p>\n

"Sorry, (I'm) pretty emotional. Seven years.<\/p>\n

\"Emotional\u00a0Jones\u00a0reacts\u00a0to\u00a0Honda\u00a0Classic\u00a0win\"<\/p>\n

"I just worked hard, I had some tough times putting, but I just worked hard with my coach back in Australia, and it's finally paid off."<\/p>\n

Jones said he didn't feel the pressure of being at the top of the leaderboard for all four rounds.<\/p>\n

"It was probably the calmest I've been for a golf tournament for four straight days.<\/p>\n

\"Matt<\/p>\n

"You can't get a tougher golf course to win on, than this one, especially in these conditions.<\/p>\n

"To be able to do that, on this golf course, is amazing, and something I can build on for the future."<\/p>\n

A two-time Australian Open champion<\/a>, the 40-year-old is the third Australian to win the Honda Classic, after Stuart Appleby and Adam Scott.<\/p>\n

His five-shot winning margin equals the largest victory in the tournament's 49-year history, level with Jack Nicklaus and Camilo Villegas.<\/p>\n

It also marks the 33rd consecutive season an Australian has won on the PGA Tour, the longest streak by an country other than the United States.<\/p>\n

Adam Scott finished tied-13th at four-under, Cameron Davis tied-33rd at even par, and Lucas Herbert tied-46th at two-over.<\/p>\n

"This is a career-changing win for him at age 40," said former US PGA champion Paul Azinger on NBC.<\/p>\n

"This is going to set him up for a few years to come."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australia's Matt Jones has recorded his second win on the PGA Tour, claiming the Honda Classic by five shots and earning a start in next […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47986"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47986"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47988,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47986\/revisions\/47988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}