The takeaway from the Chubb Classic on Sunday is that Bernhard Langer can’t win ‘em all, even when the odds turn in his favor, as they did late in the final round.
For the record, Miguel Angel Jimenez won with a par on the first hole of a playoff with Langer and Olin Browne at the Classics at Lely Resort in Naples, Fla.
Jimenez, 55, won with a final-round five-under par 66 and a back-nine rally that included four birdies.
Prior to that it was Stephen Ames’ tournament to win, then Browne’s, then Langer’s.
Ames, leading by one, had not made any score worse than a par until he hit his tee shot out of bounds on the 11th hole, leading to a double bogey that became a three-stroke swing when Browne made a birdie to go two ahead.
Browne arrived at the 18th tee with a two-stroke lead, made his own double-bogey to fall into a tie with Jimenez, Ames and Woody Austin. Moments later, Langer holed a short birdie putt at 15 to make a fivesome atop the leader board.
Ames made two bogeys coming in and Austin bogeyed the 17th hole to fall out, setting up Langer to win for the second straight week.
At the par-5 17th hole, he hit his second shot just right of the green and pitched to about five feet of the hole. But his birdie putt to take the outright lead just slid off to the right and he parred the 18th, sending it to a playoff.
On the first extra hole, Langer’s approach to the green was short of the green while Browne hit his second off the grandstand and into an impossible lie in the bunker. Each made bogey and Jimenez’s two-putt par gave him his seventh PGA Tour Champions victory. He also has won a senior touranment in six straight years.
“It’s nice to start a new season having another victory,” he said. “I’m looking forward now to having a week off in the Dominican and getting back to Tucson [the Cologuard Classic].”
As for Langer, he was in pursuit of his 40th senior victory. Instead, he settled for a tie for second, to go along with a win at the Oasis Championship the previous week and a tie for third at the Mitsubishi Electric Championship to open the season.
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