Insider: Five majors, four winners, many twists
By Vartan Kupelian, PGATOUR.COM Contributor
Five major championships. Four winners. Two playoffs. And after 72 holes of regulation play in those five events, only four shots total separated the tournament leader from the runner-up.
That's the Champions Tour's major championship season in a nutshell. The conclusion?
"It says a lot about this Tour," Michael Allen said. "I feel like when I come out and play well, I'm going to probably finish in the top 10. But it's hard to win out there.
"These are all great players. There is always so many playing well."
Allen should know. He tied for second at the JELD-WEN Tradition and lost a playoff Sunday to Mark O'Meara at the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship. That's back-to-back second-place finishes in the final two majors of 2010 despite his excellent play.
Allen isn't alone. Fred Couples teed it up in three Champions Tour majors as a rookie this year, finished two of them and was second each time. He lost a playoff to Tom Lehman at the Senior PGA Championship, an event Allen won in 2009, and Couples was second by 2 shots behind Bernhard Langer at the U.S. Senior Open.
Here's a look back at the twists and turns of the Champions Tour's five major championships in 2010:
Senior PGA Championship, Colorado Golf Club
Tom Lehman won the sudden death playoff against Fred Couples and David Frost in a manner he never could have imagined. Couples and Frost both made double bogey on the first extra hole.
It was a battle of attrition and few are better equipped to deal with the grinding nature of a major championship than Lehman. It requires patience and strategy. The venue and the situation suited Lehman and his game perfectly.
On the extra hole, Lehman, who was the last to finish his round and first to tee off in the playoff, split the fairway while Couples and Frost, who had long waits after the conclusion of regulation play, drove wildly. The playoff was over almost before it started.
"I'm not sure I've ever experienced anything like that," said Lehman, who shared the 54-hole lead with Jay Don Blake. "I turned to my caddie and I said, 'How many shots have they taken?' I didn't know."
But he knew he was on his way to his first Champions Tour major victory.
Senior British Open, Carnoustie, Scotland
Bernhard Langer's resume was missing a Champions Tour major. He rectified the situation at Carnoustie.
In a battle of Ryder Cup captains, Langer's final-round 1-over 72 was good enough to hold off Corey Pavin by one stroke. Pavin rallied from a three-stroke deficit after 54 holes to make it a contest.
"This victory ranks very high and it's pretty close to my two Masters titles and some of my Ryder Cup stuff," Langer said.
Successive three-putts at the eighth and ninth holes by Langer made things dicey but, true to his nature, he pulled it all together with clinical shots down the stretch.
And Langer, twice a winner at Augusta National Golf Club, was just starting.
U.S. Senior Open, Sahalee Country Club, Washington
Langer's first major championship on the Champions Tour took a while to achieve. The second came quickly, only one week later.
Langer didn't let the partisan galleries supporting Seattle native Fred Couples deter him from the objective at Sahalee. But that's typical of Langer. When things are the toughest, so is he.
Langer fired a bogey-free 3-under 67 on Sunday less than a week after flying across the Atlantic Ocean and across the United States. Jet lag didn't stop him, either. His 8-under total was 2 shots better than Couples.
Langer made history in the process by becoming the first German to win a United States Golf Association championship and the first Champions Tour player to win back-to-back major titles in seven years, since Tom Watson won the Senior British and the JELD-WEN Tradition in 2003.
JELD-WEN Tradition, Crosswater Golf Club, Oregon
Another major, another 1-stroke victory. This time it was Fred Funk who won his second JELD-WEN Tradition in three years. His final round 3-under 69 for a 12-under 276 total edged Michael Allen and Chien Soon Lu by a stroke.
It was a classic example of a course fitting a golfer to a tee. In four JELD-WEN Traditions at the Crosswater course, Funk was a cumulative 47-under-par.
"I really like this golf course, and I really like this area," Funk said. "Obviously, it's been good to me."
The JELD-WEN provided a new definition for a frantic finish. Eight players were tied or had the outright lead at some point on the back nine in the final round. A dozen golfers were within two strokes with the final group having only five holes to play.
"Nobody was taking off," Funk said. "I thought that Tom (Lehman) or Bernhard (Langer) would get to 13- or 14-under, but nobody did."
Funk didn't waste the opening in the final year of JELD-WEN's sponsorship of the Tradition.
Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship, TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm, Maryland
Mark O'Meara became the third golfer to win his first major title this year on the Champions Tour, winning a playoff against Allen at the Senior Players Championship.
O'Meara watched a three-shot lead dissipate before finally getting the job done with a four-foot par putt on the first extra hole. It was his first individual win since the Dubai Desert Classic six years ago. Earlier this year, O'Meara teamed with Nick Price to win the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf, also in a playoff.
"It's a class field," said O'Meara, who had nine runner-up finishes on the Champions Tour before the breakthrough. "It's a senior major championship. So I feel like I hit the jackpot.
"I never really gave away a tournament when I had a chance to win. It's just somebody else did something better. So I'm proud of that fact ... I felt like I kept my composure well emotionally out there."
The payoff was rewarding in a way that only major championships can be.
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