<p>AVONDALE, La. &mdash; Cameron Smith and Marc Leishman outlasted Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel to win the Zurich Classic in a playoff that capped a tight and tense final round Sunday.</p>
<p>Smith and Leishman won with a par on their second trip up the par-5 18th after Oosthuizen pushed his tee shot into the water and narrowly missed an 11-foot putt for par.</p>
<p>The Australians forced the playoff by shooting a 2-under 70 in alternate-shot play at the PGA Tour’s lone regular-season team event. Oosthuizen and Schwartzel began the round with a one-stroke lead, but shot a 71 with three pars and two bogeys.</p>
<p>It’s Smith’s third career victory — second at the Zurich team event — and best result since tying for second at the pandemic-delayed 2020 Masters last November. It’s also was his sixth top 10 since the current tour season started last October.</p>
<p>Smith’s last victory came at the 2020 Sony Open in Hawaii.</p>
<p>It was Leishman’s sixth career victory, his best result since tying for fifth at the Masters this month and his first win since the 2020 Farmers Insurance Open.</p>
<p>The climactic finish capped off a compelling duel between two teams that teed off together in the final grouping and took turns holding leads that never grew to more than two strokes.</p>
<p>After Smith made birdie putts of 9 feet on the par-5 seventh and 7 feet on the par-3 ninth to pull his team even atop the leaderboard, the Aussies went in front on 10, when Schwartzel’s approach found the bunker and his team two-putted for bogey.</p>
<p>Smith and Leishman took a two-shot lead with a birdie on the par-5 11th, where Leishman drove 307 yards into the fairway and Smith sent the team’s second shot 265 yards to the green, setting up a birdie.</p>
<p>But the gave a stroke back on 13 when Leishman’s drive went into the TPC Louisiana’s trademark, towering and old-growth cypress three that stands alone like a monolith in the fairway. That forced the team to take a drop that led to a bogey.</p>
<p>The South Africans moved back into the lead on 15, where Schwartzel followed up Oosthuizen’s 205-yard approach shot with a nearly 15-foot putt for birdie, while Smith, whose approach had fallen short of the green, narrowly missed a 13-foot putt for par.</p>
<p>Smith then bounced his booming, 294-yard tee shot on 16 into the water, but it went out of bounds close enough to the green that Leishman was able to hit a chip on his team’s third shot and rolled it in from more than 23 feet for birdie to tie Ooshuizen and Schwartzel at 21 under.</p>
<p>Both teams bogeyed the par-3 17th to head to the par-5 18th tied at 20 under. </p>
<p> Peter Uihlein and Richy Werenski shot a 67, with six birdies and one bogey, to shoot up the leaderboard from 18th to third.</p>
<p>Billy Horschel and former LSU player Sam Burns shot a 69 to tie for fourth with Brandt Snedeker-Keith Mitchell and Brendan Steele-Kegan Bradley. </p>
<p>Ryan Palmer and Jon Rahm, the defending champions from 2019, closed with a 70 to finish seventh at 17 under. </p>
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