By John Strege
It has not been an easy five years, most notably the year that wife Cathy fought and eventually succumbed to cancer, but Bart Bryant is a tournament winner again.

Bryant, 55, holed a 25-foot birdie putt on the 18th green at En-Joie Golf Club in Endicott, N.Y., the difference in his one-stroke victory in the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open.

“For me, it kind of feels like I’m back a little bit,” Bryant said. “It’s been a long road in life and and a long road in golf, and the golf just hasn’t been very good. The last three or four months I’ve started to feel I had something, I just wasn’t making the putts. This week I finally made four or five putts over 20 feet or maybe longer. I think that’s what put me over the top. Hopefully it’s going to kick start into better things.”

Cathy Bryant was diagnosed with brain cancer on Mother’s Day, 2016. It claimed her life on April 5, 2017. The 2017 season was the least productive of his PGA Tour Champions career; he failed to post a top 10 in 15 starts.

This win came nearly five years to the day after his last PGA Tour Champions victory, also in this tournament, on this course.

“For some reason I just like it here,” he said. “You’ve got to hit it straight and I’m a short, straight hitter. It just fits my game well. It’s funny. It was a whole different deal the last time I was here, with 62 on Saturday and shot even [on Sunday] and squeaked it out. Today I played a real good solid last round. I really Didn’t hit a bad shot all day. Putted awfully well. Really a great way to finish.”

Bryant, who won three times on the PGA Tour, took a one-stroke lead over Michael Bradley into the final hole, then made the clinching putt with Bradley looking on. Bradley followed with his own birdie and finished second. He shot 65-67 on the weekend and finished at 16-under par 200.

“My hat’s off to Bart,” Bradley said. “He played awesome. Sixty-five, 65 [sic] on the weekend, that’s tough to beat. Second place, that’s my best finish on the Champions Tour so I have to take some solace in that.”

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The trio will travel business class to Belek with Turkish Airlines and enjoy four-nights at the 5-star Hotel Titanic Deluxe and unlimited golf at Titanic Golf Club as reward for their season-long consistency.

Sobati came from fourth position after the tour’s 10 qualifying rounds to clinch Division A (8.0 handicaps and below) with 34 stableford points at Emirates G.C in the tour’s 18-hole grand final – contested by the top 30 players in each division. Sobati finished the season, where the best five results in the qualifiers are added to a player’s grand final score, with 195 points, two clear of Mark McNeilly. George Fitchet, with 192 points, was third.

Masoud Sobati

Hughes went into the grand final atop the qualifying leaderboard in Division B (8.1 to 16.0 handicaps) and held his nerve courtesy of a 35 point haul at Emirates. He finished with a season-long total of 217 points, six clear of Anand Lakhiani with Peter Boland rounding out the podium on 207 points.

John Hughes

Shewakramani entered the Division C (16.1 handicaps and over) grand final six points adrift of frontrunner John Norton but clinched the honours after signing for 36 points to Norton’s 26 at Emirates G.C. Shewakramani finished the season with 221 points to Norton’s 217 with Konstantin Zorbalas third on 215 points.

Suresh Shewakramani

Tour organiser Tom Luig is already looking ahead to the third season of the 50+ amateur circuit with new qualifiers at Sharjah Golf & Shooting Club and the soon to be opened Dubai Hills in the works. HSBC will also be back to sponsor the increasingly popular series which is attracting senior business leaders looking to mix friendly competition with networking opportunities.

“We are already 150 members and we want to make it bigger and better every year,” said Luig.

“The feedback we’re getting from the members is that they really, really enjoy playing with guys of the same age who all have something in common. They enjoy the friendly completion and the networking to the point guys are inviting new friends to play [socially] and asking to bring friends along to the next event. The more people know about it, the more we’ll grow. We can’t wait for the 2018-19 season.”

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