MIAMI • Canadian golfer Adam Hadwin's victory at the Valspar Championship in Palm Harbour, Florida, booked the 29-year-old a berth at next month's US Masters, right on the week he had scheduled a honeymoon with fiancee Jessica.

"Proud of myself the way I hung in there," he said after his win. "This course was going to be a grind the whole way through."

Hadwin captured his first US PGA title despite squandering a four-stroke lead, eventually making par on Sunday's final hole to win the tournament by one shot over American Patrick Cantlay.

A double bogey by Hadwin after finding water off the tee at the par-four 16th left the last-pair duo deadlocked, but Cantlay found a bunker at 18th and missed a par putt, allowing Hadwin's tap-in par to give him the victory.

"I fully expected Patrick to make that putt," Hadwin said. "I just wanted a chance to win on 18 and that's what I had. I thought it would take a birdie to win it. I'm just lucky that one footer wasn't 11/2 feet."

Hadwin fired a level-par 71 to finish 72 holes on 14-under 270, while Cantlay's final-round of 68 left him on 271, with Americans Jim Herman and Dominic Bozzelli sharing third on 272.

Despite the defeat, Cantlay's runner-up finish in only his second event in 28 months was worth US$680,000 (S$960,000) - enough for him to earn his tour card after playing this week on a major medical exemption.

Cantlay had been the world's top-ranked amateur in 2012, but suffered a stress fracture in a lower back vertebrae while warming up on a driving range in 2013. He has battled back and returned with a share of 48th at Pebble Beach last month.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE