Olin Browne wins U.S. Senior Open for first Champions Tour victory
Olin Browne’s first victory on the Champions Tour was a memorable one as he captured the 2011 U.S. Senior Open, the first major championship of his career. Browne had started the day two strokes better than Mark O’Meara, but O’Meara pulled even with a birdie at the fourth hole. However, he was never able to take sole possession of the lead. The two remained tied at 14-under from Nos. 8-12 before O’Meara’s bogey at No. 13 dropped him out of a share of the lead. Browne would never trail after that, building his margin to two strokes when O’Meara bogeyed No. 16. Browne sealed the win with a 30-foot birdie putt on the final hole. Olin Browne’s victory earns him a check for $500,000, the largest of his Champions Tour, as well as 1,000 points in the season-long Charles Schwab Cup race. He now has 1,330 points in the race and is second behind Tom Lehman, who leads with 1,533 points. Mark Calcavecchia is now third with 1,238 points and Nick Price is fourth with 1,181.
The win by Olin Browne came in his 142nd start since his last victory at the Deutsche Bank Championship on the PGA Tour in 2005.
Olin Browne becomes the fifth player to post his first Champions Tour win in the U.S. Senior Open. He joins Roberto DeVicenzo (1980), Larry Laoretti (1992), Don Pooley (2002) and Peter Jacobsen (2004) with that distinction.
Olin Browne becomes just the second player to go wire-to-wire in this event, joining Dale Douglass (1986).
Olin Browne has now won at least one event on all three of the PGA Tours, joining Ron Streck, Keith Fergus, Tom Lehman and Gary Hallberg with that honor.
Olin Browne joins Rory McIlroy as a wire-to-wire winner in one of the USGA’s events in 2011. McIlroy went wire-to-wire to win the U.S. Open at Congressional last month.
The win earns Olin Browne a berth in the 2012 U.S. Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco as well as a five-year exemption into the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai, the Champions Tour’s first event of the year.
Olin Browne’s opening-round 64 is the lowest score in the first round by a winner in this Tournament. The old mark was 65 by Peter Jacobsen in 2004.
Hale Irwin became the Champions Tour’s all-time leader in top-10 finishes on Sunday with his T4 effort. It was the 204th of his career, one more than Bob Charles had in his career. Irwin also has 32 top-10 finishes in majors, two more than Jack Nicklaus had in his career and he now has eight top-five finishes in this event to lead all players in that category.
Hale Irwin finished T4, his second top-5 finish in a major championship this year. He was fourth at the Senior PGA Championship in May at Valhalla.
Nick Price finished in the top 10 in three of the four majors this year after finishing T9 on Sunday. He was also seventh at the Senior PGA Championship and T5 at the Regions Tradition.
Mark Calcavecchia was the only player in the field who posted four consecutive rounds in the 60s. He finished up a nice two-week stretch. He was second to Russ Cochran at the Senior British Open a week ago and was third here. Like Nick Price, he also had a top-10 finish at the Regions Tradition (T5)
Peter Senior also owns three top-10s in majors after his sixth-place effort here. He was second to Tom Lehman at the Regions Tradition and T5 at the Senior PGA Championship.
Defending champion Bernhard Langer finished T9 in defense of his title.
Tom Lehman, the current Charles Schwab Cup leader and the leading money winner finished T23.
The field averaged 73.193 for the Tournament.
The 2012 U.S. Senior Open is scheduled for July 12-15 at the Indianwood Golf and Country Club in Lake Orion, MI.
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