Four consecutive birdies. Three to tie the tournament, one more in the playoff to win it.
Russell Henley was trailing Eric Cole at the 2026 Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club on Sunday when he decided the best response to pressure was to just keep making birdies. He birdied 16. Then 17. Then 18 — catching Cole at 12-under and forcing a playoff. Then he went back to 18 and did it again.
Four birdies in a row to win a PGA Tour event. That’s not a hot stretch. That’s a statement.
The Run
Colonial is not a birdie-fest. It’s a tight, demanding course where par is a genuine accomplishment on several holes. Making three consecutive birdies to erase a deficit and force a playoff requires a specific kind of controlled aggression — you have to commit to attacking pins that other players are happy to two-putt from the middle of the green.
Henley committed. Three birdies in regulation. Then, back at the par-4 18th in the sudden-death playoff against Cole, he made a fourth.
Cole had matched him through most of the back nine. A player who finished tied third at the PGA Championship just weeks earlier, Cole is not a pushover. He simply had the bad luck of running into a player who had decided Sunday afternoon was the time to make every putt he looked at.
The Win
Henley picked up $1,782,000 from a $9.9 million purse — his first win of the 2026 season. If Ben Griffin had won, he’d have become only the second player in Colonial’s history to defend the title, matching Ben Hogan. Instead, Henley ended that storyline one hole into the playoff.
Defending champion or history-making repeat winner — doesn’t matter when the other guy is making four in a row.
Golf takes balls. On Sunday at Colonial, Henley had more than most.
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