Fate leads Davis to title

Richard Dunn

Before an impromptu chipping lesson prior to teeing off in the first

round of the Toshiba Senior Classic, Australian Rodger Davis was

struggling with his short game, as well as a few other things, like

getting robbed at gunpoint in Mexico City and shortly thereafter

picking up his smoking habit again after quitting for “14 or 15

weeks.”

But Davis talked about fate all weekend. When he arrived at

Newport Beach Country Club last week for the Toshiba Classic, Davis

was struggling with his short game, but, as fate would have it, he

was given a quick lesson by an instructor who just happened to be

walking by when Davis was practicing.

Davis also adjusted quickly to the tricky greens and played 54

holes with the whole package, culminated by Sunday’s four-stroke

victory in the ninth annual PGA Champions Tour event in Newport

Beach, where Davis pocketed $232,500 for his first-place effort,

finishing at 16-under-par 197.

“A lot of guys started off well (Sunday), then all of the sudden

it stopped,” Davis said of his pursuers, after taking a two-shot lead

into the final round.

When asked if he could’ve won the tournament without the Thursday

lesson from Dave Pelz Golf School teaching pro Marc Albert, Davis

said: “I was struggling. I can tell you. Ask my caddie (Paul Banks)

... all of the sudden (Albert) got me contacting the ball properly.

Hey, if you think you can chip in this game, it takes the pressure

off you and you’ve got a crack at a couple of flags. Look at

(Raymond) Floyd and (Hale) Irwin. They can keep a score going [with

good chipping].”

Davis, who shot 65-64-68--197 to capture his first PGA Champions

Tour event and first title on American soil, has now won professional

golf tournaments on five continents -- Australia, Africa, Asia,

Europe and North America. The win makes him the fourth first-time

winner in 2003 on the tour and the third in succession. Last year

there were five first-time winners all year.

Further, Davis just missed tying the all-time tournament scoring

record of 17-under-par 196, set last year by Hale Irwin, the

defending champion who finished tied for third, his third top-three

finish this year and the 89th of his career in 189 starts (36 wins,

35 seconds and 18 thirds).

Runner-up Larry Nelson shot 4-under 67 in the final round, but no

one really made a push at Davis, who enjoyed a two-shot lead going

into Sunday. Jim Thorpe closed to within a stroke once, but he fell

back quickly. Davis birdied the par-4 No. 11, after hitting a lob

wedge to within six feet, and moved three shots in front at 14-under.

Several players, including Irwin, were at 11-under when Davis sank

his birdie putt.

At the par-3 No. 13 (170 yards), Davis hit a 6-iron to within 12

feet and sank a birdie putt to fall to 15-under and increase his lead

to four shots.

One of the key shots for Davis was on the par-4 No. 14, a 397-yard

dogleg right, in which he landed in the left rough and was forced to

hit between two trees. Davis ran his second shot onto the green,

tabbed later by CNBC as the Shot of the Day. He saved par.

Playing two groups ahead of Davis, Nelson birdied the par-5 No.

15, the easiest hole on the golf course, to move to 12-under and cut the deficit to three strokes. But Davis later birdied 16, another

par-4, after a 9-iron to within 10 feet.

“This is just unbelievable,” Davis said of his victory, the 34th

of his career but first in the U.S. “(Sunday) morning at least 25

guys came up to me and said good luck. I’m a bit of a foreigner

playing over here and that meant a lot to me.”

Davis, who said he began dressing in knickers in 1978 [before the late Payne Stewart], has recovered from the terrifying incident in

Mexico City two weeks ago, when Davis, another golfer and two caddies

were held up in a restaurant by two men who stole their watches.

“We thought they were joking,” Davis said. “Then one of them hit

me on the head with a gun and clicked it. It was pretty scary. I

didn’t get any sleep for two nights.”

Davis, who said he put the episode behind him, was going to

withdraw from the Champions Tour event in Mexico City, but “Fuzzy

Zoeller talked me out of it. It’s like when you get kicked off a

horse. You’ve got to get right back on.” He also had quit smoking

cigarettes, but started again that night -- along with Zoeller, also

a smoker. There were at least two camera shots Sunday on CNBC of

Davis puffing away.

“I think I was a little nervous out there,” said Davis, who is

also suffering from allergies and was one of the few players using a

golf cart this weekend.

Davis, considered one of the more popular and colorful players on

both the PGA European and Australasian tours, said he doesn’t regret

deciding in 1985 to play in Europe. “At the time, the purses were

about the same [as the PGA Tour],” he said.

The scoring in the Toshiba Classic was still low in the final

round, but not as hot as Friday and Saturday, or just like the

weather. There were only six rounds of 64 or better in the tournament

since 1996 at Newport Beach, including two by Nelson. But this year

there were three rounds of 64 or lower -- Jim Ahern in the first

round Friday and Davis and Nelson on Saturday. In the final round,

Gil Morgan, Walter Hall, inaugural Toshiba Classic champion George

Archer (1995 at Mesa Verde Country Club) and tour newcomer Andy Bean

all shot 5-under 66.