After three miserable days, Michael Bradley won his first PGA Tour event Sunday with three beautiful shots.
Bradley, who has been on the tour since 1993, won a five-way playoff on the first hole, making a 12-foot birdie putt to win the rain-soaked Buick Challenge.The tournament was reduced to 36 holes when showers washed out Saturday's third round and struck again Sunday after an hour of play. The rain lasted for about two hours, leaving the Callaway Gardens course unplayable.
Since less than half the field had completed the round, PGA officials reverted to the scores after the second round and held a one-hole playoff to determine the winner.
Bradley, defending champion Fred Funk, Len Mattiace, John Maginnes and Davis Love III were at 10-under 134 after Friday's second round, which was played, in an omen of things to come, in off-and-on showers.
Under still-threatening skies, workers used pumps and mops to sop up the water on the 18th hole and ready it for the playoff. The tee box was moved up 35 yards to provide a better landing zone, and Bradley caught a break when his drive hooked slightly off the fairway but wasn't gobbled up by the treacherous rough.
"The ball was sitting up perfectly, almost too perfectly," Bradley said. "I decided to hit a wedge and I was able to hit it just like I was in the middle of the fairway."
Bradley's 130-yard approach shot plopped down about 12 feet behind the cup, and he rolled in the putt after everyone else had missed their birdie attempts. He raised his arms in triumph before the ball even dropped out of sight.
"I knew if I had read it right, it was going in, because it had perfect speed," Bradley said. "I was kind of neat to watch it go in."
Then he paused. "Well, I don't think I actually saw it go in. I think I started looking up at the sky when it was about a foot away. I'll probably watch it go in (on videotape) one day."
Bradley was subdued afterwards, as if somehow regretting that his first tour victory came in an abbreviated event.
The 30-year-old was in the midst of a breakthrough year, ranking 26th on the money list with $576,100 in earnings - more than he had earned in his previous three years combined. He was sure that a victory was just a matter of time, but he didn't expect it under such unusual circumstances.
It was the first time since the 1994 that a 36-hole event was decided in a playoff, and it was only the sixth five-man playoff in PGA Tour history.
"I've got to be honest. I envisioned myself coming out and winning a 72-hole event," said Bradley, who earned $180,000 for his victory. "But that doesn't lessen what I did this week."
Love, the biggest name of the playoff group, was the only who didn't reach the green in two. His tee shot faded into the rough, his second shot was right of the green and the chip was short of the cup by about five feet.
Other than Bradley, Mattiace had the best chance for birdie, but his 18-foot putt slid right of the hole by about an inch.
Funk, who won the B.C. Open last weekend in a one-hole playoff after the final round was rained out, missed a 40-foot putt for birdie. Maginnes failed to make a 35-footer.
Mattiace and Bradley also were seeking their first tour victories, but the $66,000 paycheck for finishing second ensured their tour cards for 1997 by pushing them well into the top 125 on the money list.
"Wow, that's a fantastic amount of money," said Maginnes, savoring the biggest payday of his career.
LPGA FIELDCREST CANNON
CORNELIUS, N.C. (AP) - One week later, Trish Johnson turned the tables on Dottie Pepper, and this time it wasn't about international pride. It was about $75,000.
Four strokes behind Pepper at the start of Sunday's final round of the Fieldcrest Cannon Classic, Johnson shot a career-low 8-under-par 64 and won the $500,000 event by three shots.
"I don't know where it came from, really - the best round of golf in my life," said Johnson, who one week earlier was part of the losing European team that couldn't hold off the U.S. squad on the final day of the Solheim Cup competition. The Americans rallied for the victory by losing just one of the day's 12 singles matches. Included in that total was the match in which Johnson built a 1-up lead on Pepper at the turn, only to lose 3 and 2.
This time, there was no such suspense. Johnson, a native of Bristol, England, who currently resides in London, birdied two of her first three holes on the way to a bogey-free final round that was two strokes lower than her previous best score in nine years on the LPGA tour.
"I'd swap this in a heartbeat to have won last week," Johnson said. "But it's very nice. It's very satisfying, to say the least."
Johnson's final-round score was one stroke lower than the course record at the Peninsula Club, which was in its second year holding the tournament. Her winning score of 18-under 270 also was three shots better than the total posted by 1995 champion Gail Graham on the 6,318-yard layout along the shores of Lake Norman.
Finishing second after closing with a 4-under 68 was Kim Saiki, a winless 30-year-old pro who continues to enjoy what is easily her best year. Saiki, who had never finished better than 93rd on the money list, has two seconds and a sixth this season. Her winnings Sunday of $46,546 boosted her 1996 total to $160,532, putting her in good position to qualify for the LPGA Championship, the lucrative season-ending event reserved for the top 30 money-winners.
"That sounds great. That's my goal," Saiki said. "I did pretty good. I can't complain."
Pepper, bidding for her fifth victory in her last nine LPGA tour events, had three birdies and two bogeys in a 71 that left her alone in third at 274.
"It started on the very first hole. I was in between clubs, it seemed, all day long - and didn't make the right choice too often," Pepper said. "Physically I don't feel too bad, but my brain is tired."
The victory was the third on the LPGA tour for Johnson but her first since she won on consecutive weekends in the spring of 1993. She has been playing well lately, as evidenced by her victory in the European Women's Open on Sept. 8.
On the U.S. tour, however, she had just two sub-70 rounds in 1996 coming into the Peninsula Club. Johnson flew in from London on Wednesday and did not get to play or even see the course before she teed off Thursday. Undaunted, she opened with a 67 and followed it with a 71 and a 68 before Sunday's gem.
"Didn't miss a fairway. Didn't miss a green," she said. "I didn't miss a thing, so obviously, I'm delighted."
Two of her eight birdies came on par-5s that she reached in two and two-putted. Of the other six birdies, one was from 20 feet and the rest were from six feet or less.
The key, Johnson said, was a fast start that featured birdies on the first and third holes, both from six feet.
"I was there straightaway," she said. "I wasn't fighting to get up there. It was nice to get off to a good jump like that."
SR. PGA VANTAGE CHAMPIONSHIP
CLEMMONS, N.C. (AP) - Jim Colbert never saw it coming, but he sure blindsided the rest of the Senior Tour field Sunday, stringing together some clutch putts over the final five holes to win his third Vantage Championship in six years.
Colbert, who won $225,000 to close the gap on money leader Hale Irwin, carded five straight 3s on the back nine for a 2-under-par final-round 69. That was good enough for a 54-hole total of 9-under 204 and a one shot victory over Irwin, Kermit Zarley and Gary Player in the $1.5 million event - second richest on tour.
"We just kept plugging away until it happened," Colbert said of he and his caddie. "I never felt it coming, but I kept going with it. Some guys can, some can't.
"It's still a little amazing to me as I talk because it just didn't look like it was going to happen," added Colbert, who has won four times on the Senior Tour for the second straight year.
Colbert, the first-round leader with a 65 at Tanglewood Park, was plodding along at six under for the tournament and two shots behind playing partner Player through 13 holes. Then, after coming up short on an approach shot at No. 14, he chipped in out of heavy Bermuda rough for the first of his three straight back nine birdies.
He made 8-foot birdie putts on the next two holes, breaking out of a four-way tie at eight under with his 3 at No. 16.
Colbert then almost made a costly mistake on the difficult par-3 17th, hitting his tee shot into a deep greenside bunker. However, he blasted within 12 feet and made the putt for a clutch sand save that kept him in the lead.
"I hit it the one place on 17 that you don't want to hit it, on the left side of that left bunker, coming over that knob, down the hill," Colbert said. "I hit a pretty damn good bunker shot to get it to 12 feet.
"I knew the putt," he added. "You are going to miss that putt the first time you ever putt it because you think it is straight or it goes a little left but it absolutely goes a little right. It's hard to do because it kind of goes against your eyes."
From there, with Irwin closing with a birdie on 18 in the group in front, Colbert hit the fairway with his drive and hit a good second shot, putting his approach shot within 30 feet. He two-putted for par to add 1996 to his Vantage titles in 1991 and 1992.
"You will never, ever figure out this game," Colbert said. "Five straight 3s on the back side will usually get it if you're in the hunt."
"Boy, a man who does that you have to take your hat off to him," Player said of Colbert's final charge.
Player's chance to send the tournament into a playoff was derailed at No. 18 when he drove into a deep bunker and missed a 40-foot putt for birdie by inches.
Mike Hill, John Bland and second-round leader J.C. Snead finished tied for fifth, two shots behind.
Colbert moved ahead of Isao Aoki and into second place on the money list with $1,245,395, less than $200,000 behind Irwin with six tournaments left.
"I wanted this tournament today so bad, but everybody else did too," Colbert said. "You saw that nobody was setting the world on fire out there. It seemed like everybody knew what we were playing for."