Joe Highsmith picked the right time to play what he called the best round of his life.
Highsmith, who barely qualified for the weekend, posted a second consecutive 64 Sunday to come from behind to win the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches by two strokes over Jacob Bridgeman and J.J. Spaun at PGA National.
Highsmith’s victory almost didn’t happen because he almost didn’t make the cut. He squeaked through on Friday, making the cut on the number, and became the 10th player in the past 50 years to win after qualifying for the weekend on the cut line.
A two-time honorable mention All-American at Pepperdine where he was a teammate of Sahith Theegala’s, Highsmith is in his second full season on the tour after struggling to keep his card last year.
He was 160th in FedEx Cup points when the fall portion of the 2024 schedule began and a pair of top-10 finishes jumped him to 110th, securing his second season.
Until the weekend at PGA National, Highsmith’s year had been stuck in neutral. He had missed three cuts in his five previous starts, but after what he called a “horrible” warm-up session Saturday, he shot the first of consecutive 64s that redirected his career path, the lowest 36-hole weekend score in tournament history.
Having rushed up the leaderboard, Highsmith effectively stamped his name on the trophy with a birdie on the dangerous par-3 17th at the tail end of the famous “Bear Trap” where he holed a 21-foot putt.
“I feel like it turned out to be my time as a result of doing a really, really good job with my process,” Highsmith said. “Winning was kind of the last thing on my mind.”
Highsmith finished at 19-under-par 265 and sensed he was onto something big when he saw his mother, Anne, at the 12th hole on Sunday. She had planned to leave at the turn but stayed around to see her son win his first event.
“I had a feeling coming down the stretch,” said Highsmith, whose caddie is Joe LaCava IV, son of one of the tour’s best-known caddies.
The week began with Jake Knapp shooting 59 in Thursday’s first round, dismantling the often-terrorizing layout and setting a tone for the low scoring that accompanied the ideal conditions and softer overseeded course in south Florida.
Knapp still led the tournament early in the back nine on Sunday until one mistake led to a couple of more and he walked off the 11th green having made a triple bogey, set up by a poor wedge shot that led to two swings to get his ball out of the edge of a pond.
“I wish I had that shot back on 11,” said Knapp, who closed with 72 and finished T6. “I think other than that, I’ll think about the 59, obviously, but it’s not that that shot is going to haunt me or anything like that, but for the most part I’m really happy with how I hit it and felt like I just played super solid today except for just one hole.”
While Knapp’s triple was the biggest calamity among the leaders, others had chances slip away. Ben Griffin, chasing his first tour win, was done in by two late bogeys. Russell Henley, a former winner at PGA National, fell back after consecutive back-nine bogeys.
Ron Green Jr.