Final round: Perry shrugs off mistakes in playoff
SILVIS, Ill. (AP) -- Kenny Perry beat Brad Adamonis and Jay Williamson in a playoff to win the John Deere Classic and escape with his third victory in five starts after bogeying the 18th hole on Sunday.
Perry had a one-stroke lead at 17-under through 17 only to lose it thanks to some poor shots from the fringe on the final hole of regulation. He and Williamson then watched as 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 three feet short and Adamonis was at 16-under 268 with the others.
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's enjoying the best stretch of his career and collected $756,000 with his 12th victory. 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.
Now second behind Tiger Woods in the FedExCup standings, Perry might have been a threat there had he not decided to honor a commitment to play in the U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee instead. He's focusing on the Ryder Cup and on playing courses he thinks suit his game.
Like TPC Deere Run.
Perry pulled ahead at 17-under with a birdie on the par-4 14th, and stayed ahead with a putt to save par on the par-3 16th after a terrible chip from the fringe. After his tee shot settled about 19 feet from the hole, Perry overshot the cup by 16 feet.
No problem.
Instead of a bogey, he knocked in the putt to maintain a one-shot lead over MacKenzie, but he wasn't as fortunate when a similar scenario unfolded on 18.
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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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