The ACE Group Classic: Final-Round Notebook
By Dave Senko, PGA TOUR Staff
NAPLES, Fla. -- Sunday's playoff was the third in ACE Group Classic history and the first since 2004, when Craig Stadler defeated Tom Watson and Gary Koch with a birdie-3 on the first extra hole. The other playoff was in 2000, when Lanny Wadkins made par on the third extra hole to defeat Jose Maria Canizares. Walter Hall and Tom Watson were eliminated earlier in the playoff. The latter was the last four-man playoff in Champions Tour history.
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• Scott Hoch's victory was his second in succession, and he is the first to do so on the Champions Tour since last season, when Jay Haas won the Principal Charity Classic and Bank of America Championship in successive starts.
• The last player to win three straight to start the season was Loren Roberts in 2006. He started with a win at the MasterCard Championship at Hualalai then added wins at the Turtle Bay Championship and The Ace Group Classic. That is a Champions Tour record. Hoch's next start will be in two weeks at the Toshiba Classic.
• Scott Hoch picked up 240 points in the season-long Charles Schwab Cup race and surged to the top of the leaderboard with 488 points, 188 points in front of the previous leader Fred Funk as well as Brad Bryant, who picked up 18 points on Sunday to move into a tie for second. Rounding out the top five are Jerry Pate (285) and Loren Roberts (205).
• Hoch's win was his third on the Champions Tour. In addition to his win at last week's Allianz Championship, Hoch won the 2007 FedEx Kinko's Classic.
• With his win on Sunday, Hoch became the eighth consecutive player from the final grouping to win The ACE Group Classic. The last time it didn't happen was in 2000, when Lanny Wadkins needed a final-round 64 to rally from three strokes back and eventually triumph in a playoff.
• Gene Jones and Ron Streck finished tied for eighth and will earn spots in the Champions Tour's next full field event at the Toshiba Classic. Both earned spots via open qualifying last Tuesday and will advance into the Toshiba Classic field by virtue of their top-10 finishes. Gary Koch, a third non-exempt player, also tied for eighth, but Jones and Streck advanced on a tiebreaker.
• Jones had the low round of the day among the trio (68) and Streck took the second spot on a match of scorecards after he and Koch each fired 71s. Streck broke the tie when he made par at No. 18 and Koch made a bogey.
• Gene Jones, who fired an 8 under par to win the open qualifier last Tuesday, bounced back from an opening-round 72 on Friday (he was tied for 44th) with rounds of 65-68 on the weekend.
• Tom Kite's tie for second was the 16th time he had finished as a runner-up in a Champions Tour event.
• A total of 40 players finished with sub-par rounds on Sunday, pushing the three-day total to 133. In addition, a total of 87 players fashioned rounds in the 60s during the tournament. The final scoring average for the tournament was 70.954, a drop from the 71.442 average in 2007.
• The most difficult hole ended up being No. 15 with an average score of 3.114 (+.114), while No. 13 is the easiest at 4.388 (-612). That hole yielded 12 eagles and 128 birdies.
• Tom Kite and Jeff Roth had the fewest putts in the tournament (79) and Brad Bryant leads all players in driving accuracy at 92.86%. Bryant hit 39 of 42 fairways. Mark Wiebe hit 48 of 54 greens in regulation to pace all players in that category.
• Nick Price's fifth-place finish was his best since he was third at last season's Senior PGA Championship. Price nearly joined the playoff but his birdie attempt from just under 15 feet on No. 18 just slid over the left side of the hole.
• Tom Jenkins was a combined 11 under par on the par-4 holes and 5 under par on the par 5s, but was 2 over par on the par-3 holes this week.
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