Saskatoon, SK (Sports Network) – Wil Collins fired a 6-under-par 66 on Sunday and secured a 1-stroke victory at the Dakota Dunes Open.<\/p>\n
Collins began the final round four shots off the lead and used a run of five straight birdies from No. 7 at Dakota Dunes Golf Links to move into contention.<\/p>\n
Entering the final hole, the 34-year-old American was tied with playing partner John Ellis, who bogeyed the last to drop into a share of second place.<\/p>\n
Collins parred to finish at 21-under-par 267 and then locked up his first win on the PGA Tour Canada when overnight leader Nick Taylor’s 35-foot birdie bid at the last failed to drop.<\/p>\n
“It means a lot,” said Collins. “We’re all out here for the same reason, we want to get one of those Web.com Tour cards.”<\/p>\n
Taylor, who was seeking his first win on the circuit after a tie for fourth at the Times Colonist Island Savings Open in June, carded a final-round 71 and ended in second at 20-under. Ellis and Ryan Yip, who shot 67 and 66, respectively, also finished at minus-20.<\/p>\n
Jaco Ahlers (72), Joshua Creel (68) and Dan Buchner (69) tied for fifth at 18- under, Joel Dahmen (68) and Doug McGuigan (70) shared eighth at 17-under and Chris Epperson (70) took solo 10th at minus-15.<\/p>\n
Taylor maintained his lead early by carding three straight birdies after a bogey at the first. But another bogey at the fifth allowed Ellis to pull even behind a scorching start.<\/p>\n
Ellis birdied six of his first seven holes to charge to the top, where he remained alongside Taylor for much of the final round.<\/p>\n
Ellis and Taylor held their ground over the next several holes, allowing Collins to move into contention with five straight birdies from the seventh and another gain at the 13th.<\/p>\n
After a pair of pars, Collins birdied the 16th to reach 21-under and pull even with Ellis, who parred six straight from the eighth, then went bogey-birdie from the 14th.<\/p>\n
Taylor, meanwhile, played his final 11 holes at 1-over after recording a birdie at the seventh.<\/p>\n
NOTES: Collins qualified for the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion, where he missed the cut. He also missed the cut at the Times Colonist Island Savings Open earlier this season … Taylor won five straight Vancouver Golf Tour events earlier this season. He has seven career top-10 finishes in 19 starts on the PGA Tour Canada … Friday’s 6-under cut line tied a PGA Tour Canada record, matching the lowest cut line since the 2008 ATB Financial Classic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saskatoon, SK (Sports Network) – Wil Collins fired a 6-under-par 66 on Sunday and secured a 1-stroke victory at the Dakota Dunes Open. Collins began the final round four shots off the lead and used a run of five straight birdies from No. 7 at Dakota Dunes Golf Links to move into contention. Entering the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}