Woody Austin birdied the first extra hole in a three-way playoff with Daniel Summerhays and Cameron Beckman to win the Sanderson Farms Championship at Annandale Golf Club in Madison, Mississippi, on Sunday.
Austin, who had played just three PGA Tour events this season and missed the cut in all three, held his nerve on a hot and humid day, rolling in a six-foot putt on the first playoff hole to earn the 49-year-old his first Tour win since 2007.
With the victory, Austin, who turns 50 in January next year, becomes the eighth-oldest PGA Tour winner and oldest since Fred Funk won the Mayakoba Golf Classic at age 50 in 2007.
“It’s been a long road and a long time,” Austin said in a report on the PGA Tour Web site. “This is only my fourth event, so I’m really ecstatic. Now I’ve got a job again.”
Summerhays birdied his final two holes for a three-under 69 to set up a playoff with Beckman and Austin, who both closed with 67s to leave the three Americans deadlocked at 20-under 268.
Austin began the day two shots back of overnight leaders Summerhays and Nicholas Thompson, and slipped further back with a bogey at the second.
It would be Austin’s only stumble of the day as he hit back with an eagle at the par-five fifth, followed by birdies at the sixth and seventh, and two more on the back nine to muscle his way top the leaderboard.
“It was back and forth, but I gave myself so many chances over the last three rounds it would have been hard to swallow if I didn’t give myself a chance to win, because I played really, really well,” Austin said.
It was another disappointing end to a promising week for Summerhays, who was denied his first career win for the second straight week.
Last week at the John Deere Classic, Summerhays, playing in the final group on Sunday, bogeyed his final hole to miss out on a playoff as Jordan Spieth went on to become the first teenager to win a PGA Tour event in 83 years.
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