Roberts beats Commerce, but not No. 1
EAST MEADOW, N.Y. - Loren Roberts had said he had just one goal for the final round of the Commerce Bank Championship, and that was to hit the first fairway, at last. This was etched in his brain. This was burning in his blood. And did he hit it?“No,” Roberts said. “I missed it by 30 yards.”
But he did hit the rough again, trying to cut a 5-iron into the green, and then he did hit the bunker in front of the green. Anyway, he bogeyed No. 1 again, and the final round turned into a Christmas Eve bargain hunt. But once again, Roberts' calm patience and quiet determination returned, and he reversed he fall and won the Commerce, wire-to-wire, his first win of the season, his eighth on the Champions Tour.
For a while there, any one of about 12 players seemed ready to break through. But they went lockstep across Eisenhower Park's Red Course, no one able to gain any real ground. Roberts rode out the turnmoil and closed with a 3-under-par 68 for a 12-under 201 total, beating defending champ Lonnie Nielsen (a bogey-free 66) and hard-closing Nick Price (65) by one. Jeff Sluman (66), who won the Bank of America Championship the week before, and the ever-hopeful Gene Jones (67) tied for fourth at 203.
“A lot of guys were charging, throwing birdies up on the leaderboard, and I fell off for a while,” Roberts said. “I just tried to stay patient, tried to hit patient shots.”
His accuracy had improved. This time, he hit nine of the 14 driving fairways, not great but his best performance of the week. And he needed 30 putts - solid, not great, but good enough.
“No. 17 was huge for me,” Roberts said. This is a robust par-5, 582 yards long, and after he hit the fairway, his task was a bit scary. He had 247 yards left to the front of the green, with a bunker to be negotiated. Not one of the big hitters, he opted to lay up, and he what he thought was a pretty darn good wedge. But it sucked back and left him a 29-foot putt for birdie. And he holed it.
“That was the tournament for me, right there,” Roberts said. “A two-shot lead with one hole to play.”
Price started four behind and immediately began making a day out of it. He birdied four of the first six holes and seemed to be in reasonably good shape to notch his first Champions win. His only bogey came at No. 8, but he bounced back for three straight birdies form the 14th, on putts of 20, 30 and 30 feet. This was Price, not Roberts.
And ultimately, Price could put his finger precisely on where he left this tournament.
“The par-5s,” Price said. “I only played them in even par.”
He played the three with one birdie, one bogey and the rest pars. Roberts, meanwhile, played them in 7 under, including a birdie all three days at the 582-yard 17th.
This wasn't a moral victory, but Price is getting closer and closer to that first win.
“I felt comfortable today,” he said. “I hadn't been feeling comfortable, but I felt comfortable today.”
Sluman started the day four off the lead and went tearing into the race with a 66 flawed only by a bogey on the 18th. He knew he'd have to win it on his own. He said there's not much chance of the leaders folding. “On the PGA Tour, there are a lot of one-time or zero-time winners on the leaderboard, who might feel the pressure and come back a little,” Sluman said. “Here [on the Champions Tour], they're all winners. They're all used to the pressure. There's usually not much backing-up going on here.”
And Roberts, who began the final round by missing the fairway, ended it the same way. He missed the fairway at the 18th, missed it again with his second shot, and ended up two-putting from 21 feet for a harmless bogey that merely cut into his margin.
“It seems,” Roberts said, with a little laugh, “that when you know you can make a bogey at the 18th and still win, you do.”
NOTES - Roberts' win ended a string of 16 events without one, dating back to last season … Roberts' 1-shot win was the 11th out of the 16 tournaments decided by either a playoff or a single stroke … Jones' tie for fourth was his best-ever on the Champions … Peter Jacobsen, making his return after knee-replacement surgery in March, shot 77-75-76 - 226, 13 over, and tied for 74th in the 77-man field (the 78th, Vicente Fernandez, withdrew early Sunday because of a injury) … As to whether he would play a time or two back on the PGA Tour, said Sluman, a rookie: “No. This is my tour now.” But he did allow that he would play in the U.S. Open if he should qualify for it.
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