SUNRIVER — With the hero’s welcome he received outside the Crosswater Club clubhouse, it would have been easy to mistake Rob Labritz as the champion of PGA Professional National Championship.

Actually, the 42-year-old New York pro had tied for 18th place.

Labritz did, however, hit a spectacular shot Wednesday that put him in the 2013 PGA Championship.

Six golfers were in a sudden-death playoff for the last three PGA Championship berths awarded at the PNC. With two players already in after the first playoff hole, Labritz holed out for birdie from 95 yards out on Crosswater’s par-4 11th hole to earn the 20th and final ticket to the PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y.

“I get to go back to Oak Hill!” said Labritz, who will make his fourth career appearance in the PGA Championship, including 2003 at Oak Hill. “I get to go back there.”

Moments before his magical swing, Labritz appeared to be in big trouble. He hit a wayward tee shot that left him buried in a fairway bunker that had been improperly raked, he said, forcing him to muscle the ball out with a 7-iron.

With bogey likely, Labritz hit his perfect wedge. The ball bounced twice and dropped in the hole, sending Labritz into jubilation.

“That wedge is my favorite wedge on the planet,” he joked about the club he has used to hole out three shots in a week.

It has been a trying few days for Labritz. His wife, Kerry Miller, who came to Central Oregon for the tournament, is seven months pregnant and had to be hospitalized in Bend for a time earlier this week for stomach pains.

Labritz was in contention for the championship until he shot a 7-over-par 43 on the back nine of Tuesday’s third round. He shot an even-par 72 Wednesday to get into the playoff at 1 over.

With his wife watching alongside, Labritz, the director of golf at GlenArbor Golf Club in Bedford Hills, N.Y., hit the last shot of the tournament.

“I’m so emotional,” Labritz said. “My wife was in the hospital. I had the weakest back nine yesterday. I was up by the lead and the wheels fell off.

“To do that,” he added while forcing back tears, “I don’t know.”

Bend golfer’s finish: Jerrel Grow, a pro at Pronghorn Club in Bend, struggled in his final round with a 3-over-par 75.

After playing the first two rounds at even par, the 35-year-old finished at 8 over and in a tie for 59th place. Grow had a topsy-turvy final 18 holes that included three birdies, three bogeys, and a triple-bogey 6 on the par-3 13th hole.

He earned $2,015 for his efforts.

Northwesterners shut out: All seven PGA Pacific Northwest Section golfers who made the cut, including Grow, fell short of the top 20, who advanced from the PNC to one of pro golf’s four major championships.

The closest was Corey Prugh, of Spokane, Wash., who settled for a 5-over 77 Wednesday but still made the six-way playoff. Prugh, though, was turned away when Labritz hit his miracle shot and Prugh missed his birdie chip.

Washington pros Jeff Coston (+2), Tim Feenstra (+3), Ryan Benzel (+7) and Casey McCoy (+11) and Lake Oswego pro Scott Erdmann (+6) joined Prugh and Grow on the outside looking in.

Solving Crosswater: J.C. Anderson, of O’Fallon, Mo., shot a 5-under-par 67, the lowest round Crosswater yielded in the PNC’s four rounds. The 51-year-old carded six birdies against just one bogey.

That helped Anderson, who played full time on the PGA Tour in 1993, jump from 22nd place into a tie for fourth to safely advance to the PGA Championship.

This marks the second time Anderson has made the PGA Championship. In 2003, he advanced but fell short of making the cut. Coincidentally, that year the PGA Championship was played at Oak Hill.