Watson wins Travelers; Altomare 3rd in Arkansas

PGA Tour: Bubba Watson says TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Connecticut, feels like home. It certainly was a comfortable place again this week.

Watson overcame a six-stroke deficit Sunday to win his third Travelers Championship title, shooting a 7-under 63 for a three-stroke victory.

The left-hander became the first three-time winner on the PGA Tour this season and pulled within one of Billy Casper's tournament record of four victories.

He finished at 17-under 263. Third-round leader Paul Casey, Stewart Cink, Beau Hossler and J.B. Holmes tied for second. Casey shot 72, Cink 62, Hossler 66 and Holmes 67.

Watson also came from six back to win the 2010 event for his first tour title and beat Casey in a playoff in 2015.

"I feel like this is my home course," Watson said. "As soon as they put the schedule up, I sign up for this. I want to come back here. This means so much, not only from the golf side of it, but from the family side. My dad, it was the only time he got to see me win (in 2010)."

During the victory ceremony, Watson's adopted children — 6-year-old son Caleb and 3-year-old daughter Dakota — received small trophies of their own.

Watson shot a 33 on the front nine, but really got it going on the back, with five birdies. He tied Casey at 16-under par by getting up and down from the bunker for a birdie on the course's signature 15th hole.

Still tied on the par-4 18th, Watson hit his tee shot 366 yards, then pitched inside 3 feet, giving caddie Ted Scott a big high-five before taking the lead with the putt.

"Hitting some of those shots, especially the shot on 18, downwind, it was very difficult, but somehow pulling it off," Watson said.

Casey, who shot 65, 67 and 62 to lead the field by four shots coming into Sunday, birdied his opening hole. But he gave that back on the fifth and had back-to-back bogeys on 16 and 17 to end any chance he had of catching Watson, who earned $1.26 million for his 12th career victory.

Cink tied the best round of the week with a 62 on Sunday. The two-time Travelers Champion came out blazing, opening with three straight birdies and putting up a 29 on the front nine. He was 7 under through 10 and acknowledged thinking about a sub-60 round after making birdie on the 15th.

"I knew that I needed three birdies to shoot 59," Cink said. "But quickly, I also remembered that the golf tournament was on the line and it would mean a lot more to me to win the Travelers Championship than to shoot a 59."

Defending champion Jordan Spieth, who was tied for the lead after the opening round, shot a 69 to finish at 4 under. There hasn't been a repeat champion in Cromwell since Phil Mickelson in 2001 and 2002.

LPGA Tour: Nasa Hataoka didn't have the star power in her final grouping at the NW Arkansas Championship in Rogers, Arkansas. What the Japanese teenager did have by the time she was finished was her first victory on the LPGA Tour.

Hataoka shot an 8-under 63 to run away with the tournament at Pinnacle Country Club. The 19-year-old did so in record-breaking fashion, finishing with a tournament-best 21-under 192 total — three better than the mark set last year by So Yeon Ryu.

Shrewsbury's Brittany Altomare logged her most successful weekend of the season with a 4-under 67 to finish 13 under (200 total) in a six-way tie for third. She won $81,783, hiking her season earnings to $230,866 and career earnings to $1,051,850. It was her fourth career top-10 finish, first this year.

Altomare shot 3-under 68 on Saturday after starting the tournament Friday with a 65 that put her two strokes off the lead.

On Sunday, Altomare had birdies on Nos. 5, 7, 14, 17 and 18, and had it not been for a bogey on 8, could've very well finished second.

Tied at 13 under with ninth-ranked Minjee Lee entering the day, Hataoka was paired with Lee and third-ranked Lexi Thompson on Sunday. She jumped to the early lead and never let up while matching the lowest round of the week. Austin Ernst was second after a 65. Lee and Thompson topped the group at 13 under.

They were all left looking up at the 5-foot-2 Hataoka, who entered the week ranked 30th.

Hataoka won twice late last year on the Japan LPGA and has finished in the top 10 in five of her last six LPGA Tour stars, including a playoff loss last month in the Kingsmill Championship. This year has been a far change from last year when she made only eight of 19 cuts on the LPGA Tour, including a missed cut in Arkansas.

Champions Tour: Scott McCarron won the American Family Insurance Championship, closing with an 8-under 64 for a one-stroke victory over hometown player Jerry Kelly in Madison, Wisconsin.

The 52-year-old McCarron birdied Nos. 14-16 and parred the final two to hold on for his first victory of the season and seventh in three years on the PGA Tour Champions. He finished at 15-under 201 at University Ridge.

Holden's Fran Quinn shot 2-under 70 and finished at 1-under 215, tied for 61st.