Insider: Ultimate patience finally pays off for O'Meara

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"Just one more ball ... one more tournament," Mark O'Meara said. The payoff finally came at the Senior Players.

Sooner or later, it had to happen. Mark O'Meara was going to win an individual title on the Champions Tour, and that it finally happened in a major championship shouldn't come as a revelation to anyone who has followed his career.

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Because this is what professional athletes do. This is why they compete, why they grind, why they tolerate the frustrating days, why they keep dreaming and hoping and trying.

Because they've been there and done that and they want to get back there and do it again. It's a code. It may be written somewhere, but not likely because it's not necessary. It's just the way it is.

Don't take it from me. Listen to O'Meara after his uplifting victory at the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship:

"I've been doing this for 30 years. Sometimes I wonder why don't I just go check out and stay on the river. But I'm a driven guy.

"I love to compete. I want to get better. I'll stand out there and practice as hard as the next guy. Just one more ball. Maybe that will be the one. Just like this, one more tournament. Just keep plugging along. Sooner or later you just hang in there long enough, maybe that door will open up and you can walk through it and come out on top."

It opened at the Senior Players Championship and O'Meara entered. He takes the energy and success from that tournament to this week's Administaff Small Business Classic, where O'Meara finished second in 2007 behind Bernhard Langer. It was one of nine runner-up finishes for O'Meara on the Champions Tour before the breakthrough at the Senior Players.

O'Meara posted his first victory this year at the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf, where he partnered with Nick Price for a playoff victory. The victories make this O'Meara's best Champions Tour season and he's closing in on making it his best in other ways.

A year ago, he finished eighth on the money list with $1.27 million. At the moment, he's again eighth on the money list with $1.15 million with an excellent chance to surpass last year's finish.

O'Meara, who won the Masters and the British Open in 1998, doesn't bemoan his missed opportunities on the Champions Tour before this year.

"I think winning any tournament, no matter whether you're on this tour or any other tour, it's always a challenge and a little bit of a battle," he said after his Senior Players victory.

"It's a battle of emotions. It's about keeping your composure. And certainly, as we all know, you can't control the other player. But there does come an element of luck. Whatever it may be, whether it's good luck, not so good luck, and sometimes you can play well and just somebody else does something more spectacular.

"I never really gave away a tournament when I had a chance to win. It's just somebody else did something better. I'm proud of that fact."

But it's seldom all about the game. It's also about the ups-and-downs of life, the changes and the adjustments. O'Meara reached one of those watershed moments a couple of weeks before his major victory when he withdrew from the SAS Championship. He simply needed to get away from the game, to refocus, to re-energize and to think.

O'Meara also withdrew from the Senior British Open in July after the death of his father, Bob.

"I was as close as any son could be to his father," O'Meara said. "And I love my dad. I miss him ... I know this would have been a special treat for my dad, too."

O'Meara was reluctant to WD from the SAS Championship but he felt there was no choice.

"My heart wasn't in it," he said. "I don't like to do that but I just knew that I was fighting something I wasn't going to win. So I just walked away. I didn't feel good about walking away, because that's not the kind of person I am. But, yet, I didn't want to waste my time and take any more beating than I was.

"I felt if I could go and clear my head, and not even go home and practice."

When O'Meara calls a timeout and puts away the golf clubs, his destination is seldom a secret. He turns to his other passion: steelhead fishing.

O'Meara and his wife, Meredith, who were married in June 2009, made the trip to Portland. The respite was everything O'Meara expected and needed.

"Shared that with my wife and we had a blast," O'Meara said. "There's no pressure on the river. Even if I don't catch a fish, I might be out there for three days and not catch one, and I'm still having a blast.

"So I have the ultimate patience when it comes to that. I try to use that, those fond thoughts on the golf course. And certainly being remarried last year, I know how much it means to her that I've won again."

Champions Tour Insider Notes:

• Bernhard Langer's statistical dominance continues. He's first in greens in regulation (75.05 percent), third in scoring average (69.23) and the all-around category, and seventh in putting average and total driving.

• Fred Couples has won $2,016,894 as a rookie on the Champions Tour after never cracking the $2 million barrier on the PGA TOUR.

• The Champions Tour has dual iron men. Mike Goodes and Mark Wiebe have played in all 23 events this season.

• Birthday boy: Ian Baker-Finch celebrates his 50th Sunday.

• Kenny Perry and Steve Lowery are expected to make their Champions Tour debuts this week in Houston with a chance to become Sweet Sixteen again. Fifteen players have won their Champions Tour debuts, with Tom Pernice Jr. the most recent to do it at the SAS Championship in 2009. Perry and Lowery have a shot at becoming No. 16 to post a victory on their first attempt.