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"Holy crap," said 2019 Desert Classic winner Adam Long as he walked off the 72nd hole of the week with one arm around his wife Emily. He looked dazed, as if he didn't know what he'd just done. And what he'd just done was shoot a 65 in the final round to get to 26 under for the week and beat Phil Mickelson and Adam Hadwin by one stroke in just his sixth-ever PGA Tour event.

To put this into better context: Mickelson came into this tournament with as many major championship wins as Long had PGA Tour starts.

Mickelson also had a three-stroke lead on Long at the start of the round. Long came into the day at 19 under to Hadwin's 20 under to Mickelson's 22 under. While Hadwin and Mickelson duked it out for most of the round, Long bided his time with a 33 on the front nine before closing in a flurry.

He chipped in on No. 12 for birdie and did it again on No. 15. He flirted with the lead.

He made an ugly bogey at No. 16, though, and it looked as if Mickelson would lap both Adams at the end with his 44th PGA Tour victory, but Long hung tough with a nice par at the tricky 17th. The final threesome went to the last tied at 25 under. 

The 18th, presumed to be Lefty's canvas upon which to craft, actually belonged to Long. After a tee shot that gave him an awkward lie, Long hit the shot of his life off a hill to 13 feet, 9 inches. Hadwin narrowly missed his bunker shot, and Mickelson missed a bomb that would have rattled the grandstands. With only Long's birdie attempt left, he put it right in the heart. Everyone, including him, looked shocked. 

"I got a pretty good read off Phil's putt," Long told Golf Channel. "It was one of those putts you stand over and you just know you're going to make. You can't control that, but when you have that feeling it's a good one. I'm in disbelief right now. I don't really know what just happened, but I'm thrilled."

Long turned pro in 2010 and bounced around -- I mean really bounced around -- after a collegiate career at Duke. He did time on the Mackenzie Tour, the PGA Tour Latinoamerica and finally the Web.com Tour. He'd made less than $600,000 collectively in the last seven years on those tours. He'll nearly double that with a $1.1 million prize for taking the tournament this week.

"In some ways it's been a little bit of a roller coaster, but it's been a steady improvement throughout my career," Long said. "I've played on pretty much most tours and just steadily progressed. It can seem like it came out of nowhere, but my game has been trending in the right direction for the last two years now."

The entire scene was surreal. Mickelson's face after Long made the birdie for the win. Long's face after seeing Mickelson's face. His wife's face after seeing both of them. Long had not won on any of the three previous tours he played on, so you can understand the disbelief.

"It was a huge thrill to play with Phil," Long noted, sounding very much like somebody who just finished off his sixth PGA Tour event. "I've looked up to him my whole life. I'm a big fan of his, and he couldn't have been greater to me out there."

And a Mickelson win this week would have been great. He shot a 60 on Thursday, and has never lost when shooting 61 or better at an event. He came into 2019 with loads of question marks but plenty of answers in tournament No. 1. But it wouldn't have changed Lefty's life. It wouldn't really have changed his bank account all that much.

For Long, though, this win could not have affected either one more. He now gets to play the 2019 Players Championship, the 2019 Masters and gets status on the PGA Tour through the end of 2021. He also doubles his career earnings. For a 31-year-old grinder, this is as good as it gets. Holy crap, yes, because nothing else in that moment would suffice. Grade: A+

Here are the rest of our grades for the 2019 Desert Classic.

Phil Mickelson (T2): Of the 73 players that made the cut, Mickelson finished 72nd in strokes gained putting on Sunday. That has to be infuriating for somebody who hit the ball as beautifully as he did down the stretch. After fading a little bit early, he roared back with an incredible back nine that included 17 of 18 greens in regulation but just 46 feet of putts made. That's about 100 less than Saturday when he shot a 66 on the same course. Still, his first tournament of 2019 was a big-time success given how much rust he had and that he finished second in the field in strokes gained from tee to green.

"I had a terrible putting day," Mickelson told Golf Channel. "One of the worst I can recall in a while. It felt awful with the putter. I hit a lot of good shots today, I just couldn't get the ball to go in the hole." Grade: A

Jon Rahm (6th): The Spaniard was terrific in his title defense, but he didn't have that one wild round you often need at a place like this to catapult yourself to the top of the leaderboard early in the week. Rahm led the field in driving and finished in the top 15 from tee to green, but a weak Sunday putter left him on the outside looking in during Round 4. The Rahm experience this year was weird. He didn't get shown much on the broadcast, even though he was consistently four or five strokes back. I kept looking for him to have dropped off the planet, but the reality was that he simply stalled out down the stretch on a day when he needed something special. Grade: A- 

Justin Rose (T34): All things considered, this was a disappointing week for Rose, who came into the event having finished in the top 10 in 14 of his last 15 events worldwide but left here outside the top 30. He shot under par in all three rounds (68-68-68-70), but at one of the easiest PGA Tour events of the season, it wasn't even close to enough. The disconcerting part for Rose, who put his new Honma irons in play for the first time on the PGA Tour, is that he couldn't crack the top 50 in approach shots. All equipment changes come with a learning curve, but this is not a great start to Rose's post-TaylorMade career. Grade: C-