There was no letdown in the golf world this week as all the major tours provided interesting and exciting tournaments and winners.
First up may be the most inspiring and heartwarming of all the winners. At the Senior Open Championship at historic Sunnydale Golf Club in Berkshire, England Marco Dawson took on two giants of the Senior Tour and came out the winner.
Dawson could be called the journeyman’s journeyman. He had a less than stellar PGA Tour career where he played in 413 tournaments with a single second place as his claim to fame.
But as many fifty year olds do he has found new life on the Champions Tour. Earlier this season in March he broke through for his first Champions Tour win at the Tucson Conquistadores Classic.
This week he was doing battle with the cream of the crop of senior golf. Bernhard Langer has 24 Champions Tour wins including this season Seniors PLAYERS Championship. Did I mention he also has two Masters wins?
Colin Montgomerie already has a major this year, the Senior PGA Championship and he claimed two majors last season in his inaugural Champions Tour season.
So it would have been easy for Dawson to fold in the shadow of his two opponents but that wasn’t in his game plan.
He said later that he had played afraid for all his PGA career but the new lease on life that is the Champions Tour had given him a ‘just have fun” attitude.
He was having plenty of fun when he rolled in an eagle putt at the fourteenth hole to take the solo lead.
Monty looked to in control early with a front none 31 and fashioned a two shot lead but subsequent bogeys on eleven and twelve started his fall.
On the 72nd hole Langer had a chance to tie if he sunk his birdie and Dawson had made par but Dawson wasn’t ready to give him the chance.
With Monty out of the running and Langer surveying his twelve foot putt Dawson stepped up to his eighteen foot putt and sailed it dead center into the hole. Game, set and match Dawson.
“This is unbelievable,” Dawson said afterwards. “I can’t tell you how many hours I put in on the range, and I’ve had two back surgeries to prove it. I’ve spent a lot of time on the range and on the putting green over the years, and you know, it’s a little later than most of the guys, but it came true.”
“I had a lot of fun last year. I wasn’t expecting a lot but things started to happen and I started getting more and more confident. And then I won earlier this year, which gave me a lot of confidence through the rest of the season, and when I got to this point two days ago, and I had a good first round and a good second, I thought, okay, maybe this is going to happen again. I said we’ll just keep on making the swings and try and make the putts. That’s what it comes down to. I just made one more putt than Bernhard.”
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