Final round: Perry shrugs off mistakes in playoff
SILVIS, Ill. (AP) -- He never wanted to be the star, the main attraction, but Kenny Perry will have no choice if this continues. The guy who merely wanted to win enough to make the Ryder Cup team is now racking up victories at a rapid pace.
"I don't want to live in a fishbowl," he said. "I don't want Tiger status."
He's got a ways to go to get there, but he is attracting more attention than ever before.
Perry beat Brad Adamonis and Jay Williamson in a one-hole playoff to win the John Deere Classic and escape with his third victory in five starts after bogeying the 18th hole Sunday.
He had a one-stroke lead at 17 under through the 17th only to lose it thanks to some poor shots from the fringe on the final hole of regulation. He and Williamson were off the course when Adamonis, the PGA TOUR's oldest rookie at 35, missed an 18-foot putt for birdie that would have won it in regulation and given him his first victory.
The ball stopped 3 feet short, and Adamonis was at 16-under 268 with the others. Perry, who was signing autographs, said he didn't see the shot. He just heard the roar and knew he had to get back on the course.
While Adamonis and Williamson both hit approach shots into the pond on No. 18, Perry tapped in from 1 feet, 4 inches for par and the victory after his 24-footer stopped just short.
He picked the ball out of the cup and raised both arms, an ear-to-ear grin crossing his face.
He has reason to smile.
He collected $756,000 with his 12th victory and is enjoying the best stretch of his career at an age -- 47 -- when players are getting ready for the Champions Tour. A guy with apparently no aspirations to be the next Arnie or Jack suddenly is one of the hottest players on the PGA TOUR.
"I told my dad I was going to make the PGA TOUR and win a tournament," he said. "My goal was never to be a superstar. I just wanted to make a living and support my kids."
Perry (1-under 70), Adamonis (70) and Williamson (69) were one stroke ahead of Charlie Wi (69), Will MacKenzie (70) and Eric Axley (69) after 72 holes.
Williamson earned an invitation to the British Open and, unlike Perry, accepted it.
"To play the British Open, I don't think that has quite sunk in yet," Williamson said. "I am blinded by the playoff. To go play the British Open, I mean, I never thought that would happen to me."
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| Sunday's Best |
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The par-4, 361-yard 14th was the easiest with a Sunday scoring average of 3.447.
The par-4, 476-yard 18th was the toughest with a Sunday scoring average of 4.329.
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Perry took a lot of pressure off his round with his perfect drive onto the par-4 14th green on Sunday. The drive set up an easy two-putt birdie. 
Cameron Beckman went out early and took advantage of good conditions to fire a 6-under 65 and earn his best finish of the year. | QUOTE OF THE DAY | ||
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BITTERSWEET FINISH FOR WILLIAMSON
Jay Williamson, with a final-round score of 69, earned and accepted a spot in this week's British Open. Since Williamson and Adamonis (70) tied for second place, the players' final-round scores were used to determine who would get the invitation.
This will be the fourth major championship of Williamson's career. He competed in the U.S. Open in 2003, 2001 and 1999, with his best finish being a T20 in 2003.
"I have never played the British," Williamson said. "I didn't try to qualify this year because, you know my -- I mean, if you look at it in that perspective. I didn't try to qualify this year. I felt like I needed to play here and Milwaukee."
Some players will go their entire career without ever seeing overtime, but this was in the second time in 13 months that Williamson lost a PGA TOUR playoff. Hunter Mahan defeated Williamson at the 2007 Travelers Championship, but the second-place check helped secure Williamson a PGA TOUR card for 2008.
"Well, the consolation prize for Hartford was status out here. The consolation prize for this was the British Open," Williamson said. "I think if you ask me that in ten years, I would probably say this is a good consolation prize, a better one. Again, it will take some time for me to accept this. I felt like it was my time to win."
| What the leaders said... | ||||||||||||||||
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NEXT SEASON, THIS GUY MIGHT BE AT TPC DEERE RUN
By Dave Lagarde, PGATOUR.com
BRIDGEPORT, W. Va. -- Let's hear it for a true believer, a journeyman who refused to give up, who kept chasing the dream until he finally caught it over the course of four pressure-packed days and 73 holes in north-central West Virginia.
So give kudos to Rick Price, 40, a former assistant club professional who persevered for what seemed like an eternity on the Nationwide Tour waiting for his time to arrive. It came during an afternoon rain shower following a bogey on the first playoff hole against Chris Anderson.
It won't take long for those items to get lost in the details of what Price achieved. He's headed to a professional golfer's Disneyland, the PGA TOUR, in 2009, bypassing his 20th trip to the Qualifying Tournament while collecting $180,000, the biggest first-place check in Tour history in this inaugural Nationwide Tour Players Cup, the first to offer prize money of $1 million.
And just to put Price's long, strange trip into perspective, that $180,000 is more than he made in any of his previous eight seasons on this Tour.
"I'm really excited,'' were the only words an emotional Price could squeeze out said while choking back tears seconds after Anderson's 20-foot bogey putt slid by on the low side on the playoff hole, the 470-yard, par-4 18th.
The words would flow later though for Price, who became only the third player to win a Nationwide Tour event with a bogey in a playoff, which was set up when Price also bogeyed the 72nd. But bogeys be darned.
"I got it right enough,'' the relieved champion said.
He sure did. And with $249,283 in earnings and third spot on the money list, he finally got that PGA TOUR thing right, too.
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DROPPING DEUCES
Ryan Armour, Woody Austin, Bart Bryant, Jim McGovern, Scott Sterling, Ron Whittaker all made an eagle at the par 4 14th hole during the final round on Sunday.
| 1 | Number of fairways missed in the final round by Jay Williamson |
| 70 | Spots Williamson jumped in the FedExCup standings (158th to 88th) |
This is the highest number of players to eagle this hole in a round. This is the second-most eagles at a par 4 in the last 20 years in the final round of a PGA TOUR event.
In 2003, seven players made eagle at the par 4 fifth at the World Golf Championships-American Express Championship.
FRANCIS NOT BOTHERED BY FINAL-ROUND 75
UCLA's Phillip Francis stunned the field by easily making the cut, then vaulting to 11th with a third-round 64. Could be really become the first amateur to win on the PGA TOUR since Phil Mickelson?
It was not to be.
Francis made just two birdies in the final round and wound up tied for 34th. Remarkably, he didn't make a double bogey all week.
"I came into the event with the mindset of winning, not making the cut," Francis said. "Everyone was making a big deal about me not making the cut. I was working on creeping up the leaderboard, that's what I came in today to do.
"I didn't really get off to that good of start. Bogeyed my first two holes, got into some trouble. And didn't hit the ball as well as I would have liked. Just being out here for my age is really awesome."
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