Senior pipped again on Champions Tour.
BY Bruce Young | Champions Tour | 2011 Songdo IBD Championship Presented by Korean Air | Wrap | 18 Sep 2011
Peter Senior may today have earned his biggest cheque on the Champions Tour but it will be a case of mixed emotions having produced a final round of 64 to grab a share of the lead and then to lose a four man playoff to Jay Don Blake.
Senior shared the runner-up position with Mark O’Meara and John Cook at the Songdo IBD Championship Presented by Korean Air near Incheon in Korea but the elusive breakthrough win remains just out of his reach.
Senior was at 8 under through 16 holes but what would have been the crucial birdie over the final two holes or regulation eluded him. He and O’Meara were both eliminated at the third extra hole after three putting from the edge of the green.
Blake went on to win with a birdie at the 5th hole and in doing so won his first event on either the Champions or PGA Tour in nearly twenty years.
Senior started the final round nearly an hour ahead of the final group in today’s third and final round and birdied seven out of nine holes in the middle of his round to challenge for the title. He was forced to wait as challengers came and went but at one stage it appeared as if his round might well have been good enough.
O’Meara, Cook and Blake would all produce late birdies to force a four man playoff with Blake emerging as the winner.
For Senior it was his second playoff loss this season but he can be consoled by the fact that the US$225,000 has moved him to third on the Charles Schwab Cup points table and to 4th on the money list with 2011 season earnings of $1,240,000.
“I drove it well all week,” Senior told PGA Tour. “My irons were the right distance and I had lots of birdie opportunities inside 10 feet. It was one of those days where I really got on a roll. I’ve had a good run this year. Last year was my first full year of golf in 10 years. I feel like my game is getting better.”
The Charles Schwab Cup offers US$2.1 million in annuity payments to the leading five players on a specific points table at season’s end with US$1 million to the winner. Senior is currently 490 points behind the leader, Tom Lehman but there are also big bonuses to those finishing between 2nd and 5th.
The Champions Tour will play their next event, the SAS Championship, in North Carolina in two weeks time.
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