It took 14 years, but Chip Beck finally gave the PGA Tour another 59 Friday.
That's 59, as in 29-30, as in the second sub-60 round in tour history, as in 13-under par, as in 13 birdies and five pars."I knew it was going to happen. I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner. I'm just amazed it happened to me," Beck said.
Beck, 35, in his 13th season on the tour, birdied the last three holes on the Sunrise Golf Club course near the glitz and glitter of the Las Vegas Strip to reach the target that had been the goal of professional golfers since it was first achieved by Al Geiberger in the 1977 Memphis Classic.
It was worth a $1 million bonus, half to Beck and half to charity, and the lead in the third round of the $1.5 million Las Vegas Invitation.
Sunrise is a members' course that Beck had never even seen before Friday, and it's unlikely he'll ever play it again.
It's listed at 6,914 yards but plays shorter in the dry desert air and has a par of 72. It is being used as a fill-in this year in the three-course rotation used for the first three rounds of the Las Vegas tournament.
"It was a team effort," Beck said. "I hadn't seen the course before. I couldn't have done it without my caddy, Dave Woosley."
In the end, however, it was Beck who had to pull the trigger and make the shots.
"I'm felt it could happen. I was so pleased I didn't get in my own way, that I let it happen," Beck said. "After the Ryder Cup it was like a walk in the park."
There were some nervous moments, however, in a round that had some remarkable parallels to Geiberger's tour of the Colonial Country Club. Both rounds came on Friday, both players began from the 10th tee, and both need birdie on the final hole to crack 60.
Geiberger did it with a 10-foot putt. Beck didn't want to face that. "I wanted to get it close and kick it in. I didn't want to be standing over any 10-footer for 59," he said.
After a big drive down the fairway on the 408-yard ninth hole, Beck had 157 yards left to the green. "That's usually a 7-iron for me, but it was a little downhill and a little downwind," he said, "so I hit an 8-iron. When I hit it, I said, `Boom, that's it."'
The ball stopped about three feet from the cup.
Beck went to the back of the green to take some practice strokes - "stay in my routine," he said - while his three amateur partners completed the hole.
Then it was his turn.
"It was a tough putt, a little left to right. The longer I stood there, the longer it got. I played it left edge, and it went in off the right lip," Beck said.
"After I played that back nine - my front side - in 29, I felt I could do it," he said. He dropped a 40-foot putt on his first hole, then ran off a string of six consecutive birdies beginning on his third.
"Sometimes," he said, "you have a feeling on the golf course that the burden is leaving you. You have a peace about you that transcends golf.
"That happened to me today."
He hit short irons inside of 10 feet on the first two holes after the turn and birdied both, going 9-under for the day.
A little chip left him a 2-footer for birdie-4 on his 13th hole and he went 10-under.
He missed a 10-footer on the next hole and was unable to birdie the par-3 sixth, his 15th hole of the day.
That left him needing to birdie in to match Geiberger's score.
He hit a 2-iron second shot to the 498-yard seventh hole and had a 25-footer for eagle. He left it inches short and tapped in for birdie.
"I felt like I really needed the eagle," he said, "but I figured, `What the heck, I'll just keep going,"'
He kept it alive on the 191-yard eighth hole, when his 5-iron approach came off a hill and ran to within 6-8 feet of the cup. He made that putt to set up the drama on the final hole.
Beck, who beat Jose Maria Olazabal in a critical singles match in the Ryder Cup two weeks ago, stopped short of calling this the peak of his career.
"I said the Ryder Cup was the highlight of my career," he said. "That was different, a team thing. It was something we had to do. It's still the highlight."
MUNICH, Germany - Sandy Lyle of Scotland shot his second straight 65 on Friday and opened a four-stroke lead in the $1.2 million International Open. David J. Russell of England fired a 68 and climbed to second place.
Magnus Sunesson of Sweden, who shared the first-round with Lyle and American Paul Azinger, shot a 70 Friday and fell to third place at 135 with Australian Peter Fowler.
Azinger shot 73 and had a 138 total.
Nine of 11 Americans made the cut at 142.
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland - Sooner or later, luck had to run out. Blessed with summer-like conditions each of the past six years, the Dunhill Cup golf tournament fell victim Friday to an old Scottish scourge: the "haar."
That's what they call the dense fog which rolls in off the North Sea and blankets the eastern coast - sometimes for days at a time.
With visibility on the Old Course reduced to barely 30 yards Friday morning, organizers of the $1.7-million team event were forced to postpone all four quarterfinal matches until Saturday.
Forecasters said more of the same is expected this weekend.