America’s Scott McCarron won the third senior major title of the year, the Senior Players Championship, after Bernhard Langer dropped two shots over the final two holes at Caves Valley Golf Club in Maryland.
Langer was trying to become the first player in the history of the senior tour to win the same major four years in a row. The run began in 2014 at the Fox Chapel Golf Club in Pittsburgh, continued in 2015 at the Belmont Country Club in Massachusetts and stayed alive last year at the Philadelphia Cricket Club.
And now it’s over.
For 70 holes, the 59-year-old German looked on course to win his fourth consecutive Senior Players Championship, and his third straight senior major, but an uncharacteristic collapse on the 17th and 18th paved the way for 51 year old McCarron to win his first major tournament after the California shot a six-under-par 66 to make up a six-shot deficit and beat Langer and Brandt Jobe by a stroke.
Langer had a one-shot lead after the 16th hole, but he put his tee shot in the water on 17, and missed a four-foot putt and had to settle for a double bogey.
On 18, Langer lipped out a six-foot birdie putt that would have forced a playoff. He finished with a 73 that included only two birdies.
“I thought I hit a really good putt on 18,” Langer said. “But the big issue was 17, hitting a horrible shot there and then missing for bogey. That was the killer.”
“This is going to hurt for a little while, because it was within my grasp to win the championship,” Langer said. “All I had to do was come home in even par more or less. Twenty under would have done it. But it’s easier said than done.
“At 17, I hit it exactly where I didn’t want to hit it — in the water. Anywhere else, left, short, long, you’ve got a chance. Out of the water, you don’t. And I didn’t make a putt all day.”
McCarron got into contention with four straight birdies on the front nine. He finished with eight straight pars, which was good enough to earn him $420,000, his biggest payday on the 50-and-over tour.
“I’ve been working so hard for this,” said McCarron. “That was one of my goals this year, to win three events, and one of them being a major. So I’ve got one more event to go.”
Miguel Angel Jimenez shot a 66 to finish fourth at 16 under, and Steve Flesch was fifth at 13 under.