Daniel Berger won the Charles Schwab Challenge in a playoff over Collin Morikawa.  Morikawa missed a 4 footer for par of the first playoff hole to give the win to Berger.  Berger, whose birdie on the 18th gave him a 4-under 66, won for the third time on the PGA Tour, all three titles coming on this week in the calendar. The other two in 2016 and 2017 were at the St. Jude Classic when it preceded the U.S. Open.  The birdie put him at 15 under and he would wait for the rest of the field to finish.

Morikawa missed a 6-foot birdie putt for the win and that forced a playoff.

This felt different because Colonial was devoid of fans — just like the next four weeks will be on the PGA Tour — and because of the routine he followed. Berger went from the golf course to his rented house, his uncle serving as the chef. He had a saliva test in Florida and a nasal test when he arrived for the coronavirus, both negative.

He said he was excited when he arrived — Berger has shot par or better every round since Oct. 11 — because golf was back to business. And he was thrilled when he left, a winner again after missing nearly five months at the end of 2018 because of a wrist injury. The victory moved him from outside the top 100 to No. 31 in the world.

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, on the first tee when golf returned Thursday, was back in Florida watching a final round unfold with eight players taking turns at the top and a half-dozen still in the mix over the final hour.

The scorecard this week included 487 tests for COVID-19 at Colonial, all returned negative. The leaders brought star power, Colonial brought heritage and it was the first live PGA Tour event since March 12 because of the pandemic