Jim Colbert didn't make a mistake Sunday until the final hole.
By then, however, it didn't matter.Colbert shot a 69 to finish at 10-under-par 278 and win the Senior Players Championship in Dearborn, Mich., one stroke ahead of Raymond Floyd. It was his first major on the senior tour.
Colbert, who won the Royal Caribbean in February, closed with a bogey, his only one of the day. But he still walked off with the winner's check of $180,000 and his seventh senior victory.
"The challenge is: Does the swing work under pressure?," Colbert said. "You can't always control the results. But the results can sometimes be favorable.
"The 18th was a results hole. Even after I saw Raymond birdie, I still had a two-shot lead. So there was no prize for putting up some super number there. I knew I just had to get it in, and take the money."
Floyd shot a 68 to finish at 279. Al Geiberger was another shot back at 280 after a 66.
"I missed some putts on the back side," said Floyd, who tied for seventh in the U.S. Open at Baltusrol last week. "That really hurt me."
Colbert and Rocky Thompson were tied for the lead at 209 after three rounds, one shot ahead of New Zealander Bob Charles.
Colbert birdied the fourth and ninth holes to turn at 9-under, three shots ahead. But things tightened on the final nine holes. Floyd and Geiberger each made a run to close within one stroke, but Colbert hung tough.
Colbert birdied the par-3 15th to go 10-under, then rolled in a twisting putt on the two-tiered 16th to go 11-under. That gave him a three-shot lead again, this time with just two holes to play.
"After I birdied the 15th, I figured, `If I can birdie the 16th, I might just have her done,"' Colbert said.
Still, he made it exciting at the par-5 17th, where his third shot ran across the green before stopping a foot short of dropping into the water. Then, at the 18th, his approach landed in a greenside bunker. He blasted out and made a two-putt bogey.
"I could have gone in the water at the 17th," Colbert said. "My caddy, Willie Miller, was having a heart attack. But it finally stopped. Such things happen. On the 18th, I slammed a 5-wood in there when I should have hit an easy 3-iron.
"It was the only bogey I made. Yet the only time I did, it was when I was OK."
Geiberger, a two-time winner this season, started the day five shots off the pace. He made the turn in 33, then made a big move. Geiberger eagled the par-5 13th and followed with a birdie at No. 14 - the toughest hole on the course - to get to 8-under, one shot behind Colbert.
But that was his last move and Geiberger finished 8-under.
"This is a frightening golf course," Geiberger said. "It's not a course you can relax on. It's like walking through a mine field."
Floyd, playing for the first time in this event - sponsored by Ford Motor Co. - also saved his best for the back nine, where he birdied Nos. 12 and 13 to get to 8-under. He made a bogey at No. 14 but followed with a birdie at the 15th to remain one behind Colbert, who was in the threesome just behind him.
Floyd narrowly missed a birdie putt at the 17th, then birdied the final hole for a 68-279.
"On the 18th, I almost made a 2," Floyd said. "That would have made things exciting. I put it within a foot, and put him in. I'm pretty good on those."
Hugh Delane Thompson, the mayor of Toco, Texas, birdied the first two holes to get to 9-under, two strokes better than anyone. But Thompson bogeyed the fifth and triple-bogeyed the sixth after hitting his second shot in the water.
Jack Nicklaus, who designed the 6,876-yard TPC of Michigan course, shot a 71 to finish at 3-over 291. That tied him with Charles Coody, whose finishing 65 was the tournament's best round.
Chi Chi Rodriguez shot a 74-290, Gary Player a 72-294, Lee Trevino a 69-297 and Arnold Palmer a 78-298.
At Cromwell, Conn., Nick Price, using a borrowed putter, found the touch that eluded him at the U.S. Open and shot a 5-under-par 65 Sunday to win the Greater Hartford Open by a stroke.
Price played bogey-free golf for the final 28 holes and finished the tournament at 9-under 271, matching the low four-round score on the 3-year-old course. Dan Forsman and Roger Maltbie birdied the final hole to finish at 8-under.
"I can't tell you how much this means to me," Price said. "I played so well last week (at the U.S. Open) and to end up losing everything on the greens was just so hard to accept especially since I was putting so well recently.
"But this week has more than made up for everything. I'm just glad I found another putter."
Last week, Price became upset over ads being run by the manufacturer of his putter. So he borrowed a putter from Denis Watson on Friday, and he started making some putts Sunday.
Price birdied the eighth and ninth holes to move into a tie with Corey Pavin for the leaad at 7-under. He then parred the next three holes and took over sole possession of first when Pavin bogeyed the 11th hole.
Price extended his lead to three strokes when he birdied the 13th and 14th and parred the rest of the way in. He nearly missed a 4-foot putt on the 17th, however.
"I wasn't sure whether to go outside the hole or on the right edge," Price said. "Eventually I hit it on the right lip and just pulled it a little bit. I guess I had enough pace on it. But I was very edgy over that putt to say the least."
After two days of struggling with winds up to 20 mph, the field played excellent golf on the Tournament Players Club at River Highlands, enjoying calm skies and greens softened by early morning showers that suspended play for 29 minutes. Thirty-one golfers shot below 70.
Forsman and Maltbie also shot 65s Sunday. It was the third time in five years Forsman has finished second at Hartford. Maltbie lost in a playoff to Mac O'Grady at the GHO in 1986.
Pavin shot 1-under for the day and finished fourth at 6-under. Brian Kamm made seven birdies in a 64 to tie the course record set by three golfers in the opening round in 1991 and 1992.
At Somers Point, N.J., Shelley Hamlin birdied the 15th and 17th holes after losing a three-stroke lead Sunday and won the $450,000 ShopRite LPGA Classic by two strokes in a record performance.
The victory was the third for the 44-year-old golfer and her second since breast cancer surgery two years ago. Her 9-under-par total for 54 holes broke the mark of 7-under set by Juli Inkster in 1988.
Hamlin won the $67,500 top prize by shooting a 1-under 70 and withstanding a challenge that at one point saw eight players grouped within two shots of the lead.
That came after Hamlin bogeyed the par-3, 14th to fall into a tie for the lead with Danielle Ammaccapane at 7-under. Beth Daniel, Amy Benz and Martha Faulconer were all one stroke back, with defending champion Anne-Marie Palli, Judy Dickinson and Brandie Burton two off the lead.
Hamlin, who either shared or held the lead after each round, then took control at 360-yard, par-4, 16th. She hit her second shot to within 12 feet and made the putt to take the lead at 8-under.
Benz and Daniel both got within a shot of the lead at 7-under with birdies at the par-5 16th hole, but Hamlin gave herself some breathing room making an 8-foot birdie putt after Ammaccapane, playing in the group in front of her, bogeyed the hole.
That put Hamlin two shots ahead entering the tight 390-yard 18th hole. She hit her drive down the left side of the fairway and then knocked her iron to within 10 feet to wrap up the victory.
Daniel, Benz and Dickinson tied for second at 7-under while Ammaccapane and Faulconer finished at 6-under. Palli and Burton were four shots behind the winner.
Daniel, looking for her 28th career victory and first since 1991, closed with a 69 on the Greate Bay Country Club course, which for the first time this week was not whipped by the winds.
Benz, who had a second-round, tournament-best 66 to move into contention, finished with a 68 in her bid for her first career victory. Dickinson had a 67 with birdies at the final two holes.
Faulconer, whose best finish this year was a tie for 26th, shot a 68. Ammaccapane had a 69 in her best showing of the year.
Burton, who started the final round seven shots behind Hamlin, got within one after playing the first 14 in 6-under. However, she bogeyed the 15th and 18th and finished with a 67. Palli, who had a 68, was within two shots of the lead when she bogeyed the 16th.
At Saint Quentin En Yvelines, France, Italy's Costantino Rocca won a one-hole playoff at the French Open on Sunday after wasting a two-shot lead on the final regulation hole.
Rocca shot a 70 in the final round to finish in a tie with Paul McGinley, who closed with a 68. Both golfers had an 11-under total of 273.
On the first playoff hole, Rocca hit a 7-iron past the green and got a bogey. But McGinley drove a 9-iron into the water and ended up with a double bogey, allowing Rocca to take the $125,000 winner's check.
"France is some lucky country for me," Rocca said. "I win the Lyon Open, now this. I'd like to play here every week. Maybe they could play the Ryder Cup in France, too."
Rocca, a two-time winner this year, is a candidate for the European Ryder Cup team.
The victory boosted him to third on the European money list with $334,300. McGinley earned $83,325.
England's Mark James finished third, while England's Mark Roe and Sweden's Anders Forsbrand tied for fourth. American Jay Townsend tied for sixth after shooting a 66 Sunday.