It was the breakthrough moment of the tournament, and for Hunter Mahan, it was a moment of perspective.
With The Barclays hanging in the balance, with a leaderboard that spent 3¹/₂ rounds with nothing but bunches of players lurking within striking distance, finally Mahan made a putt that maybe he shouldn’t have. The 28-footer dropped for birdie, and with it, he looked up, smiled, and waved a hand at a friend.
“That’s for you, Finny,” Mahan said, looking over adjacent to the 13th green at Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, NJ, where a 21-year-old named David Finn sat in his wheelchair. As muscular dystrophy twisted Finn’s limbs, Mahan’s acknowledgment and show of appreciation put a wide-open smile on his face.
“We can’t imagine what he’s going through,” Mahan told The Post after that birdie on 13 propelled him to a final-round 6-under 65 and his first PGA Tour victory in 2¹/₂ years. “He’s just an inspiration to everyone.”
With a bit more jump in his step, Mahan went on to birdie three of the next four holes and take control of the first event of the FedEx Cup playoffs, and the two-shot win over Stewart Appleby, Cameron Tringale and Jason Day vaulted him into first place in the standings going into the second leg of the four-tournament playoffs next week in Boston.
And joining him there will be Finn and his father, John, who is a history and social studies teacher at Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, N.J. With a piece of a Ping staff bag given to him by Mahan hanging from the wheelchair, Finn is labeled as “The Golf Fanatic.” The Deutsche Bank Championship at TPC Boston over Labor Day weekend will be his 40th tournament, the first being the 2005 PGA Championship at Baltusrol, when Phil Mickelson befriended him with a signed glove on Tuesday — and then went on to win his second of five major championships.
“Sometimes,” John repeated to The Post Sunday, “fairy tales do come true.”
Mahan first encountered Finn at the 2008 Travelers Championship in Hartford, Conn., where he was the defending champion. Joining him for the final couple holes, Mahan started dropping birdies in Finn’s presence, and called him his good luck charm.
“Every time he came up to Hartford, we started making birdies,” said Mahan’s caddie, John Wood. “Every time.”
At the 2012 Travelers, with Mahan on the verge of shooting a final-round 61, Wood took off his bib and put it on Finn as he wheeled him up the 18th fairway to a raucous applause. The winning bib from this week was signed by Mahan, above which he wrote in big block letters, “We couldn’t have done it without you.” It will go into Finn’s bedroom, known as “The Golf Museum,” a place that Wood went and visited earlier in the week.
“It’s hard to [have perspective] because you’re trying to win a tournament,” Mahan said, “but I think [Finn] just gives you some joy.”
The joy became greater when Mahan got to the 18th green, after he smartly chipped out from the trees and made a slippery 8-foot putt for bogey. With a small fist pump — and a sarcastic wave and look-away from Wood — Mahan turned to see his wife, Kandi, and his newly turned 1-year-old daughter, Zoe, rushing out onto the green to meet him. They had just flown into town, unbeknownst to Mahan, and the surprise was just the cherry on top of a day that hardly seemed to be about golf at all.
“Life is all about the little things,” Mahan said. “It’s about coming out and having a good time and enjoying life and not making any excuses.”