Tony Finau, from his garage to the winners circle in Puerto Rico

PGA Tour Puerto Rico Open final leaderboard

Tony Finau is from Salt Lake City in Utah and as a very athletic 6'4" guy has basketball in his blood. He was a star in high school and his cousin is Jabari Parker of the Milwaukee Bucks.

However he also loved to hit golf balls. The problem was, his parents couldn't afford a membership, or even buckets of balls. So his father set up a mattress in the garage where Tony could pound away for hours on end.

Now this long hitting 26 year old can buy all the balls he wants after he won the Puerto Rico Open for his first PGA Tour title, beating Steve Marino with a birdie on the third hole of a playoff at the very plush but windy Coco Beach resort.

Finau and Marino each shot -2 70 to finish at -12 276. Marino birdied the 18th to tie Finau, and got into the playoff when Finau narrowly missed a 6-foot birdie putt. Ian Poulter closed with a 72 and had a 20 footer on the 18th to get into the playoff which he missed after taking the lead into the final round.

Nick Taylor had a great week closing with -2 70, T5 -10 while Graham DeLaet had a -1 71  -8 total T11. Young Adam Svensson shot +1 73 and finished T47.

Bryan Angus