Monday, January 28, 2013

Hanson defeats Gustafsson on first playoff hole


Hanson defeats Gustafsson on first playoff hole

Updated: April 17, 2005, 2:40 PM ET
Associated Press
SAN ROQUE, Spain -- Peter Hanson won the Spanish Open on Sunday, defeating Swedish countryman Peter Gustafsson with a par on the first playoff hole.
Gustafsson shot a 6-under-par 66 to overtake Hanson, the third-round leader, and finish regulation at 8-under 280. Hanson closed with a 71.
Hanson missed the green on the playoff hole, the 18th, but chipped to about 1 foot. Gustaffson also missed the green and two-putted.
"I am really happy with how I played today with the pressure of coming out with the lead," Hanson said after his first victory on the European Tour. "Apart from a couple bad club selections, I don't think I missed a shot.
"It is always hard to get your first win and, as I haven't been in this position before, to pull it off on my first time feels great."
Ireland's Peter Lawrie birdied the last two holes for a 69 and shared third place at 283 with South Africa's Hennie Otto, who birdied the last hole for a 72.

Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press

Final-round scores from the Spanish Open


Final-round scores from the Spanish Open

Updated: April 17, 2005, 1:05 PM ET
Associated Press
SOTOGRANDE, Spain -- Final-round scores from the $2.14 million Spanish Open at the 7,103-yard, par-72 San Roque Club:
x - won on first playoff hole
x-Peter Hanson, Sweden          70-68-71-71--280
Peter Gustafsson, Sweden        70-69-75-66--280
Hennie Otto, South Africa       71-71-69-72--283
Peter Lawrie, Ireland           71-70-73-69--283
Stephen Dodd, Wales             74-73-72-66--285
Robert Karlsson, Sweden         72-71-71-71--285
Miguel Angel Martin, Spain      71-72-72-71--286
Steven O'Hara, Scotland         70-75-74-68--287
Raphael Jacquelin, France       73-71-74-69--287
Simon Khan, England             73-73-72-69--287
Paul McGinley, Ireland          76-70-72-69--287
Ian Garbutt, England            72-74-73-69--288
Sam Little, England             74-70-74-70--288
David Gilford, England          75-71-70-72--288
Paul Lawrie, Scotland           72-72-69-75--288
Jose Manuel Lara, Spain         73-73-68-75--288
Francois Delamontagne, France   73-72-75-69-289
Stuart Little, England          72-74-74-69--289
Damien McGrane, Ireland         73-74-69-73--289
Sebastian Fernandez, Argentina  73-72-70-74--289


Also

Stephen Gallacher, Scotland     73-75-75-67--290
Jean Van de Velde, France       73-71-77-74--295

Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press

Vols' Skinns putts home individual honor


Vols' Skinns putts home individual honor

Updated: April 17, 2005, 9:17 PM ET
Associated Press
ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- Kentucky won its first Southeastern Conference men's golf championship Sunday while Tennessee's David Skinns won individual top honors.
Kentucky shot a three-over 283 Sunday to finish the three-round tournament at 875, two shots ahead of Auburn on the 7,005-yard Seaside Court at the Sea Island Golf Club.
Skinns had a three-round score of 210, one shot better than Georgia's Richard Scott.
Skinns and Auburn's Tyler McKeever shot the low rounds Sunday, two-under 68. McKeever finished in sixth place.
Skinns is the first Tennessee player to capture the individual title since Mike Sposa in 1990.
Kentucky's final-round 283 was the low round for any team.
John Holmes led the Wildcats with a third-place finish at 215.
Kentucky's Matt Kohn and Florida's Brett Stegmaier tied for fourth at 217.
Georgia, the 2004 SEC champion, placed third with a three-day score of 883. Florida, which led after Saturday's round, was fourth at 888.
Tennessee placed fifth at 889. LSU and South Carolina tied for sixth at 899, followed by Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi State, Mississippi and Vanderbilt.

Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press

Lonard wins Heritage after final-round 75


Lonard wins Heritage after final-round 75

Updated: April 19, 2005, 3:50 PM ET
Associated Press
HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. -- Darren Clarke needed just four words to sum up his Sunday collapse in the MCI Heritage.
"Anybody got a beer?" the Irish star asked.
The dazed Clarke will not soon forget his startling run of bogeys and double bogeys in a closing 76 that handed Australia's Peter Lonard his first PGA Tour title.
"I can't believe I've done what I've done," Clarke said.
Clarke, who birdied four of the first five holes to take a four-stroke lead, was tied with Lonard entering the final hole.
The drama ended quickly, though, with Clarke losing his ball after pulling his approach into the thatchy beach area next to the green en route to a double bogey. Fans shouted to Clarke, Lonard, their caddies and officials who searched for the wayward shot without success.
Clarke eventually trudged back to the fairway to finish off his double bogey while Lonard, safely on the green in two, chomped a granola bar waiting out his landmark win.
"Obviously, I didn't win it the way I wanted to win it today," Lonard said. "But at the end of the day, if you win, you win. That's what I'm going to take out of it."
Clarke, looking for his first PGA Tour win in two years, was instead left stunned. After all, He played the first 36 holes in a career-best 12-under 130.
Lonard's final-round 75 gave him a 7-under 277 total, while Clarke's 76 dropped him into a tie for second at 5 under with five-time Harbour Town winner Davis Love III (71), Jim Furyk (69) and Billy Andrade (68).
"We were just hanging on for our lives," Lonard said.
It was hard to keep things straight at Harbour Town Golf Links without a scorecard. Lonard was down by four, then led by one after the eighth hole. He again fell behind Clarke by two shots after a bogey on the 12th hole. But three holes later, Lonard was ahead by a stroke and clung to the victory.
Clarke's play was almost as wild has his neon red shirt and multicolored striped pants.
He birdied four of the first five holes to get to 14 under and threatened to turn a tight match into a blowout. Then came bogeys on the sixth and seventh holes and a double bogey on the eighth after a drive into a pond on the left.
Things got more bizarre for the native of Northern Ireland on the back nine. It appeared as though he had steadied himself when a birdie on the 12th hole gave him a two-stroke lead.
However, Clarke came back with a double-bogey 6, landing in a trap close to the wood facing in front of the 13th green, then failing to get out when he hit architect Pete Dye's famous planks.
On the next hole, the par-3 14th, Clarke's tee shot went behind the green and his approach rolled past the cup and appeared certain to land with a splash in the pond that surrounds the green. However, his ball stuck on the last split in the weathered wood for a bogey.
"Things happen out here that you don't think are going to happen," Clarke said. "I didn't think I was going to shoot whatever I shot today."
Lonard, who won the Australian Open and Australian PGA in consecutive weeks late last year, might have spared the golf world the garish sight of Clarke in his outfit slipping on the red, plaid jacket given the MCI Heritage winner.
It was a crazy finish for Lonard, who opened with a career-best 62 on Thursday, then fell six shots behind Clarke with a 74 in the second round. Lonard rebounded on Saturday with a 66.
On Sunday, Lonard's 75 was the highest final round by an MCI Heritage winner, surpassing Arnold Palmer's 74 in the inaugural event in 1969.
Lonard went to his Orlando, Fla., home to switch to a conventional putter from the long, broom-handle model he had used. Despite his inconsistencies on the greens, Lonard thinks he'll keep the shorter club in his bag. "I think it had a lot of good vibes," Lonard said.
The victory, worth $936,000, gives Lonard a two-year PGA Tour exemption. It also caps his long journey back from Ross River Fever, a mosquito-bourne virus that affected his eyesight -- and made greens impossible to read correctly -- in the early 1990s and made him give up the game. He took a job as a club pro until laser surgery eventually corrected his vision.
"I've had a lot of luck along the way," Lonard said.
Furyk, the former U.S. Open champion recovering from last year's wrist surgery, was eight strokes behind and tied for eighth when the round began. But he closed with his best finish of the season.
An average round by Love at Harbour Town -- he's had 37 rounds under 70 since he first started coming here in 1986 -- might've put him in the mix. But he could never mount the kind of charge that helped him to his last MCI Heritage crown in 2003 when he came from five shots down to take the title in a playoff.
Even on the final hole this time, Love faced an 8-foot birdie putt that would bring him to a shot of Clarke. Love missed it left, but still had his 11th top-10 finish in 20 appearances at Harbour Town.
Divots:

Four of the five Champions Tour players entered -- Jay Haas, Peter Jacobsen,Craig Stadler and Doug Tewell -- made it through Sunday. Of the group, all but Jacobsen will play in the older tour's Legends of Golf event in nearby Savannah, Ga., next week. ... Ian Poulter, playing alone as the first one out, finished 18 holes in a tidy 2 hours, 21 minutes. Poulter closed with a 74 for a 16-over 300 total. ...Lee Westwood, who was next to last this week, won't remember his final nine fondly. He went bogey- double bogey-quadruple bogey-double bogey-bogey from the 13th to 17th holes.

Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press

Clarke implausibly shoots final-round 76


Clarke implausibly shoots final-round 76

Updated: April 18, 2005, 3:25 PM ET
By Ron Sirak | Golf World
One of the truly compelling things about golf is that when the wheels come off there is no place to hide. You can't call in a new pitcher, you can't bring in a substitute off the bench, and you can't try to make up for a poor shooting touch by focusing on playing defense or concentrating on rebounding.
Darren Clarke
AP Photo/Mary Ann ChastainClarke birdied four of his first five holes in Sunday's final round ... and still shot a 76.
In golf, you have to stand up and hit the next shot. The history of the game is littered with guys and gals looking for a place to hide. There wasArnold Palmer playing the final nine holes of regulation at the 1966 U.S. Open in 39 strokes, squandering a seven-shot lead. There was Helen Alfredsson leading the 1994 U.S. Women's Open by seven strokes through 44 holes then playing the next 18 holes in 85 shots. And there was the 78 in the final round of the 1996 Masters by Greg Norman that turned a six-stroke lead into a five-shot deficit.
Sunday's closing round of the MCI Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head, S.C., was hip-deep with examples of guys who likely wanted to scream, "Take me out coach, I'm not ready to play." How about Jose Maria Olazabal whiffing in a bunker on No. 13 on his way to a triple bogey? How about the bogey-bogey-double bogey stretch by Darren Clarke beginning at No. 6 that turned a final-round lead of four strokes into what was a one-shot deficit at the time? And how about the fact that Peter Lonard, the man with whom Clarke was supposedly dueling, put on a putting performance that was absolutely painful to watch? But that is exactly what makes golf such a great spectator sport -- there is no place to hide. There is no one else who is going to come in and bail you out. When things are going wrong on the golf course it is the loneliest place in sports.
The tape of the last round of this MCI Heritage should be placed in a time capsule, encased in cement and not dug up for about a million years. That way we can make certain it doesn't inadvertently pop up on ESPN Classic and we have to watch it again. The only reason Lonard won this tournament was because somebody had to win. That's the rule. To say that Clarke handed the tournament to Lonard is certainly accurate, but Clarke was only returning the apparently unwanted gift presented to him earlier by the Australian, who won for the first time in the United States.
This tournament didn't so much create memorable moments as it did produce horrid images seared into the mind. The memory of Clarke's triple bogey on No. 13 when he banged a ball off a railroad tie and left it in the bunker was still being filed away in the ugly-image section of the brain when he followed it with a bogey on the next hole that could have been much worse except the last grain of wood on a railroad tie kept him from chipping over the green and into the water. Meanwhile, Lonard made a bogey of his own on the hole and no stroke was lost. The fact that both players made it to the final tee tied for the lead only set the stage for the final act of this absurdist comedy.
Clarke, hitting an eight-iron from the fairway, deposited his approach shot into the marsh left of the green, couldn't find the ball and finished with a double bogey to hold on for a piece of second place, two strokes behind Lonard. This finish was about as ugly as the red plaid jacket the winner has to take home. Just consider this: Lonard comes into the final round with a one-stroke lead over Clarke, shoots a 75 -- and adds a shot to his margin. Hey, these guys are good.
And to make it all the more bizarre just think of this: Clarke went from one stroke behind to four strokes ahead in the first five holes of Sunday's round. Instead of saying "Thank you very much," he then played the final 13 holes in 9 over.
Over the final 18 holes, Clarke had six pars, five birdies, four bogeys and three double bogeys. The fact that a guy can make birdies on four of the first five holes and shoot a 76 is a little bit mind-boggling, especially when the guy came into the tournament as the 17th-ranked player in the world.
Just consider this final tally for Clarke at Hilton Head: He made 23 birdies, 34 pars, 12 bogeys and three double bogeys. He played the first 36 holes in 130 strokes -- 12 under -- and the final 36 holes in 149 strokes -- 7 over That's a rather remarkable 19-stroke swing. If Clarke had been a pitcher, the manager would have come after him with the hook about the time he made the double bogey on No. 8. But this being golf he had to grind on, and on this day that meant playing the final 10 holes in 44 strokes.
Like a great pitcher in baseball, a great golfer learns how to win even when he does not have his good stuff. We saw it down the stretch last week when Tiger Woods was missing virtually every fairway on the back nine at Augusta National and still figured out how to win the Masters. Great players also figure out how to contain the damage when the wheels come off, as Woods did in the first round at the Masters when he took what could have been an 80 and turned it into a 74. It was that element of greatness -- the ability to patch it together when it is falling apart -- that Clarke was woefully lacking Sunday at Hilton Head. And this being golf, their was no relief pitcher to bail him out. The way Clarke responded to adversity could very well explain why one of the best British golfers currently in the thirty-something age group lacks a major championship on his résumé.
When it came time to grind he puffed on his cigar and watched his chances go up in smoke.
Ron Sirak is executive editor of Golf World magazine