US Champions Tour regular Peter Senior beat Geoff Ogilvy with a par on the second hole of a playoff to win the Australian PGA title yesterday.
Ogilvy, who won last week’s Australian Open, finished with a six-under-par 66 while Senior birdied the 18th for a 71, both finishing with 12-under-par totals of 276.
Both players parred the 18th hole on the first hole of the playoff but Ogilvy three-putted the hole his second time around, giving the 51-year-old Senior his third Australian PGA title. He became the oldest player to win a professional tournament in Australia.
Senior and Ogilvy were two of 24 golfers who had to finish their rounds yesterday after heavy rain suspended play on Sunday.
Three Australians — Nick O’Hern (69), Peter Fowler (71) and Andre Stolz (71) — finished level in third place, one stroke back of Ogilvy and Senior. Stolz bogeyed the 18th after hitting his tee shot in the water.
The US’ Bobby Gates, who led by a stroke after Saturday’s third round, bogeyed two of his final nine holes yesterday and finished with a 74 in a group tied for sixth, two strokes behind the leaders.
Ogilvy said he was disappointed with the three-putt finish but not with his play overall in the past two weeks.
“That’s the best way I’ve finished a year in a long time,” Ogilvy said. “But to be honest, I never really felt that I was in this tournament until Sunday. And I never thought my 12-under would hold up for a playoff.”
Ogilvy had to wait at least an hour — “I hit a lot of balls on the range” — between his finish and Senior completing his round in the final pairing with Gates.
Ogilvy resumed on the 14th hole yesterday and birdied that hole and 16. Senior, who led by one on the resumption of play, bogeyed his first hole — the 10th — after his tee shot in pouring rain on Sunday left him in the trees when play was stopped.
Senior forced the playoff when he made a curling 10-foot birdie putt on 18, where up to several thousand spectators had gathered despite the 6am start.
Defending champion Robert Allenby, who had four holes to play yesterday, finished with a 70 and a 280, four strokes back.
Gates, playing the Coolum course for the first time, tried to be diplomatic on Sunday when play was called despite a tough officiating decision that had forced him to hit an awkward shot out of a bunker that was nearly flooded by rain. He ended up bogeying the hole.
“I’ve never played where it’s gotten to this point before, but I understand they want to try to get it in,” Gates said.
Senior, who said he felt Gates got a bad decision on his bunker shot, said the last three holes that he and Gates played were extremely difficult, and “the 10th tee was actually underwater when we got there.”
“Poor old Bobby Gates,” Senior added. “The bunker was just riddled with water on the ninth hole there and had to play his shot and he could have made four if he just putted the hole. But when the course is unplayable, the day should be called and that’s it.”
DUNHILL CHAMPIONSHIP
AP, MALELANE, South Africa
Pablo Martin successfully defended his Alfred Dunhill Championship title on Sunday as he recovered from a late stutter for a final-round two-under 70 and a two-shot win.
The Spaniard made a triple--bogey seven at No. 17, but then birdied the last for an 11-under 277 at Leopard Creek Country Club, two clear of Denmark’s Thorbjorn Olesen and South African pair Charl Schwartzel and Anthony Michael.
Martin had surged ahead with an eagle-birdie start, and opened a five-shot lead through 11 holes following two more birdies on Nos. 7 and 9. With a three-shot lead on the tee at No. 17, the disastrous seven then cut his advantage over playing partner Michael to one stroke with one hole to play.
However, the 24-year-old defending champion recovered to send his second on the par-five No. 18 on to the middle of the green and Michael found the water to end his chances.
Martin finished with a birdie four for successive victories at the European Tour’s season-opening tournament, winning a US$210,000 check. He is the first winner on this year’s Race to Dubai and the first player to retain a European Tour title since Padraig Harrington won a second straight British Open in 2008.
“I played really well for nine holes, then I got myself into trouble,” Martin said. “It was a good start and it gave me a little bit of a cushion, and I needed it.
Newcomer Michael, 25, had led since Thursday afternoon at Leopard Creek but had two bogeys and a double-bogey on Sunday and couldn’t match the attacking strokeplay of Martin.
He will have to wait for his first tournament win as a professional after a final-round 73 — his worst of the tournament — dropped him to a tie for second on nine-under alongside Olesen and the No. 39-ranked Schwartzel.
Olesen fired a superb 66, with six birdies, to jump 10 places.
Schwartzel mixed four birdies with two bogeys to finish with a 70.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
HSIEH MAKES QUARTERS: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium won in the women’s doubles and face Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin of the US Top-ranked Iga Swiatek and US Open champion Coco Gauff were knocked out of the women’s singles at the Miami Open on Monday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced in the women’s doubles. Swiatek lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-2, hours after third seed Gauff fell in three sets to No. 23 Caroline Garcia 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Alexandrova beat a top-ranked player for the first time and advanced to face Jessica Pegula, a 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 winner over Emma Navarro, in the quarter-finals. Alexandrova recorded her second win over Swiatek, following a 2021 victory in Melbourne. Swiatek had won their three matches since. “We played quite