THE RETURN OF SPIDERMAN

By Torleif Sorenson on 8/18/14

Four years, five months have passed since Colombia's most famous man in golf, Camilo Villegas, tasted victory. In fact, he last made a cut at the 2011 Masters, at which he finished 49th. Since then, he has either missed the cut or did not qualify to play. He even had to return to Q-School in 2012. At one point, he had fallen to number 254 on the Official World Golf Rankings.

This past weekend's PGA Tour event was the final one of the regular season: The Wyndham Championship — formerly the Greater Greensboro Open. Villegas needed to do something special to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs — and he did.

Villegas, nicknamed "Spiderman" for the way has gotten down on all fours to read certain putts, bookended a Friday 69 and a Saturday 68 with a pair of 63s to hold off American Bill Haas and Sweden's Freddie Jacobson to win the Wyndham Championship by one stroke.

The winner's check is certainly nice, but other things are more important to the Colombian:

"Beginning of the year I look at my caddie and I said, 'Big guy, I want to win on the PGA TOUR again.' It happened to be the last tournament of the regular season and so, yes, I've accomplished my primary goal this year.

"It feels great and I go to the Playoffs hopefully... the same way I did this week and hopefully (I will) play some good golf."

Not hopefully; he's *in* — in fact, he leaped from 105th place into 37th place in the FedEx Cup standings. Also vitally important is the two-year exemption that locks him into a Tour card at least until 2016. As a bonus, "Spiderman" is now invited to the Tournament of Champions in Hawaii in January, as well as the 79th Masters Tournament.

Fun fact about Villegas: He is a very serious cycling enthusiast — and last week, at home visiting his parents, he rode 400 miles on one of his road bikes. Villegas is known to ride "centuries," or 100 miles in a single day. This is not exactly a huge surprise; Colombia has produced many very successful Olympic and professional cyclists, men and women both, and is one of that nation's most popular sports at both the amateur and professional level.


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