By John Strege
There is more than one way to win a golf tournament, as Australian Rod Pampling proved on Sunday, winning the Boeing Classic outside Seattle on Sunday with his feet up in the clubhouse. More or less.

Pampling, 51, claimed his maiden PGA Tour Champions victory by finishing his round of 66 at the Club at Snoqualmie Ridge, tied with Jim Furyk, then repairing to the clubhouse to await his fate, which at the time seemed certain to place him second or worse.

“Yeah, I think he’s got four holes to go, so I’m not going to hit balls for an hour, whatever it is,” Pampling said. “I’ll just go in the locker room and just chill out for a bit.”

Furyk, who recently won the U.S. Senior Open, seemed more than likely to birdie one of his six remaining holes. Instead, he missed birdie chances at 13, 14, 15 and 16, bogeyed 17 to fall one behind, then parred 18, allowing Pampling, by then on the range in the event of a playoff, to begin a celebration that seemed unlikely to occur for much of the afternoon.

“There’s so much pressure getting your first win and finally to get it done is great,” Pampling said. “You know, it’s golf, sometimes it works out.”

A first win was inevitable, sooner or later. Pampling had finished in the top 25 in 18 of his first 25 starts as a senior and had earned nearly $1.2 million.

But a bogey on the 16th hole on Sunday threatened to end his bid for win No. 1. “The bogey on 16, yeah, that was the only shot really today that I wasn’t happy with,” he said.

He completed 54 holes in 12-under par 204, a number that might have been one short until Furyk, no doubt a future Hall of Famer, began misfiring with his putter. Furyk closed with a two-under par 70 and tied for second, with Tim Herron and Billy Mayfair. Woody Austin also had a chance to tie Pampling at 18, but made bogey following a perfect drive and tied for fifth.

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By John Strege
Lanny Wadkins, in Golf Channel’s telecast of the Boeing Classic on Sunday, again made a case that he should be golf’s slow-play czar for his inability to restrain himself when witnessing flagrant violations.

Once one of the game’s quickest players, Wadkins obviously got fed up with the time Stephen Leaney was taking to play his tee shot at the par-3 13th of the PGA Tour Champions event at TPC at Snoqualmie Ridge outside Seattle.

The batting order on the tee was Ken Duke leading off, followed by a renowned slow player, Bernhard Langer. Leaney was third to hit and when it was his turn he clearly wasn’t ready. Thirty seconds or so passed as Leaney continued to discuss yardage and the shot with his caddie. Finally, Wadkins chimed in.

“You know, Arron [Oberholser], we’re talking about slow play and I’m sitting here looking at this and he’s the third guy to hit. The other two guys have already hit. Why is there so much issue right now? Langer is not fast. Shouldn’t he [Leaney] have gotten all this stuff done?”

RELATED: Stricter rules and a little public shaming will go a long way to address slow play

“Lanny, you’re preaching to the choir,” Oberholser, himself a quick player, said. While Leaney and his caddie continued their deliberations, Golf Channel cut to another player at another hole. When it returned to Leaney, finally ready to play, more than a minute, 20 seconds had passed.

Three years ago, working the John Deere Classic for Golf Channel, Wadkins went after Keegan Bradley for his pre-shot gyrations.

Then in January of 2018, there was this:

Lanny Wadkins on Bernhard Langer: “There’s the hole, the tee, you’ve got the club, there’s no wind, you’ve got the yardage, OK, pull the trigger. They’ve just had more conversation than I had with a caddie in an entire round.” #SlowPlay

— John Strege (@JohnStrege) January 21, 2018

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By John Strege
Two newly-minted 50-year-olds will enter the PGA Tour Champions fray at the Boeing Classic this weekend, each with an impressive resume that includes having tangled with Tiger Woods.

Darren Clarke, who turned 50 on Aug. 14, is a former British Open champion with three PGA Tour and 14 European Tour victories, and is a former European Ryder Cup captain.

He also took down Tiger Woods, 4 and 3, in the final of the WGC-Anderson Consulting Match Play Championship in 2000.

Chris DiMarco, meanwhile, won three PGA Tour events, was ranked as high as No. 7 in the world, and played on two U.S. Ryder Cup teams and two Presidents Cup teams.

DiMarco, who turned 50 on Thursday, also was the unfortunate victim of Woods holing the famous pitch shot from behind the 16th green at the 2005 Masters. DiMarco lost to Woods on the first hole of a playoff.

Neither of them are going to be tournament sharp in the Boeing Classic that begins Friday at the TPC Snoqualmie Ridge east of Seattle.

Clarke, at least, has played six European Tour events this year, though missing the cut in four of them and finishing T61 and 63rd in the other two.

“I think I’ve got to find my feet,” he said when asked whether he has any expectations at the outset of his senior career. “I’ve got to come out and figure out where my game’s at. I’m not really sure because I haven’t been that competitive for that long.

“So figure that out maybe the next couple of weeks and see what I really need to work hard on, work on those areas and then try and improve from there. So I’m not putting any expectation on myself. I just hope that I play reasonably well and see how it goes.”

Clarke could have made his senior debut at the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open last week, but opted instead to remain at his home in Bahamas.

RELATED: Smoke from Washington state fires turn air quality ‘unhealthy’ at site of Boeing Classic

“When I had my choice of being on the golf course for my 50th birthday or being on the beach in the Bahamas for my 50th birthday, the beach sort of won that battle,” he said.

“But I’ve been down there again with the family the past three weeks and spent a lot of time on the range working really hard, and I’m trying to get ready.”

DiMarco has played one tournament since he missed the cut in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans in May of 2016. He played the KC Golf Classic on the Web.com Tour earlier this month, shot 68-75 and missed the cut.

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By John Strege
Jerry Kelly was a moderately successful PGA Tour player better known as a tour leader in body English. His gyrations were on full display in the Boeing Classic, where on Sunday he recorded his first PGA Tour Champions victory.

Kelly, 50, who won three times and earned nearly $30 million on the PGA Tour, shot a final-round six-under-par 66 at the Club at Snoqualmie Ridge outside Seattle to defeat Jerry Smith by one stroke.

It was never easy. He and playing partners Smith and Billy Mayfair combined for 20 birdies and zero bogeys. Smith shot an eight-under-par 64 to put up the greatest challenge, but ultimately was defeated by Kelly’s birdies at 16 and 17.

“It was crazy,” Kelly said. “It has shocked me to no end the quality of play. These guys are shooting these numbers every single week.”

Kelly, whose best finish in 12 prior PGA Tour Champions starts was a third, in his debut at the Chubb Classic, was a wire-to-wire winner at the Boeing, posting a 65 in the opening round followed by a pair of 66s to finish at 19-under-par 197.

“I finally got off to a good start and kept things going,” Kelly said. “The game plan again was to try to keep it on the gas. I missed three or four opportunities early, but I did make two good par saves which kept things going.”

The par saves came at the fifth and ninth holes and were important, if not critical, in his quest to win for the first time.

“I did not want them to smell blood,” he said.

Bernhard Langer, meanwhile, shot a seven-under 65 and tied for third on his 60th birthday. He, too, played a bogey-free round. In fact, none of the top five players on the leader board made a bogey on Sunday.

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