Keegan Bradley won his second Travelers Championship in dramatic fashion after a two-shot swing on the 72nd hole denied Tommy Fleetwood his first PGA Tour victory.
Fleetwood had been defending a three-shot lead following his flawless 63 on Saturday, sitting at 16 under par ahead of Bradley and Russell Henley.
However, a couple of early bogeys threatened to derail his bid to end his record of the most top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour since 1983 without claiming a title.
The 34-year-old, though, steadied himself around the turn to edge back ahead of Bradley with birdies at the 11th and 13th.
A bogey on the 16th for Fleetwood was followed up with two pars on the 17th, which meant the Englishman took a one-shot lead down the 18th.
Fleetwood’s approach to the final green came up a touch short and left, while Bradley arrowed an all-or-nothing effort right at the flag.
Worse was to come for Fleetwood as he left the long birdie putt just outside Bradley’s ball, which meant he had to play first and showed the American Ryder Cup captain the line.
Fleetwood’s par putt kicked a touch right and missed the cup, which left Bradley with a five-footer for birdie, which he made, and the two-shot swing would hand him the title in front of his home New England crowd.
It was a second victory in three years in the event for the 2011 PGA Champion, and it was more heartbreak for Fleetwood, who has seven DP World Tour wins but none Stateside.
“I feel like from where I was, I should at least be in a play-off,” Fleetwood said.
“I didn’t really feel like I hit that many bad shots execution-wise, just sort of a couple of bad decisions and didn’t clean ’em up, which is pretty poor and things that I have to work on.”
Fleetwood added: “I haven’t been in this situation for a while. When it sort of calms down – I am upset now, I am angry – but when it calms down, I will look at the things that I did well and look at the things that I can learn from.
“I did plenty of things well enough this week to win, but I didn’t do that and it hurts.”
Earlier, Rory McIlroy posted a fine closing round of 65 to climb into a share of sixth place, but ultimately fell three shy of the leaders.
The five-time major winner started the day nine shots off the lead and it would have taken a monumental effort to overturn the deficit, however, McIlroy recorded six birdies and one bogey in his final round to get to 12 under alongside world number one Scottie Scheffler.
Newly-crowned US Open champion JJ Spaun had the best round of the day, starting off at the 10th, as he carded a seven-under 63 to climb up into the top 15.
Viktor Hovland had earlier withdrawn on the third hole of his final round because of a neck injury.
