Rod Pampling wins in Las Vegas for first PGA Tour win in 10 years

Rod Pampling won for the first time in 10 years on the PGA Tour when he closed with a six-under-par 65 for a two-shot victory Sunday in the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open.

Pampling holed a 30-foot birdie putt on the final hole at the TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas that clinched the victory. He raised his right arm and thrust it when the ball was still another foot away from the cup. The 47-year-old Australian last won on the PGA Tour at Bay Hill in 2006.

Brooks Koepka closed with a 67 to finish second.

Lucas Gloverwas tied with Pampling with two holes to play until he made a bogey from the bunker on the par-three 17th, and he closed with another bogey when winning was out of reach. He shot a 69 to finish third.

Pampling’s last victory was in the 2008 Australian Masters. He lost his PGA Tour card after the 2013 season and spent two years on the Web.com Tour, and had to return to the Web.com Tour Finals last month just to get his card back. His biggest shot might have been for par.

Tied for the lead on the par-five 16th, he pushed his drive well right into rough so deep that Pampling asked to identify his ball, and it was a good thing — it wasn’t his ball. His ball was a foot to the right, buried so badly that he could only muscle it some 30 yards behind another tree, and he had to lay up short of the water. From 121 yards, Pampling hit wedge into 6 feet and saved par to stay tied.

Glover’s tee shot on the 17th was about a foot away from being good, but it caught the lip of the bunker and left a difficult shot. He missed a 12-foot par putt and never caught up.

Pampling finished at 20-under 264 and will be exemption up until his 50th birthday when he is eligible for the PGA Tour Champions.

The victory was the third of his PGA Tour career for Pampling, who also won the now-defunct International in 2004. It puts him in the Masters for the first time since 2007, along with the PGA Championship for the first time since 2009.

Feng wins LPGA event in Japan

Shanshan Feng broke away with three straight mid-round birdies and held on to win the TOTO Japan Classic in Ibaraki for her second straight victory.

The 27-year-old Chinese star closed with two-under 70 at the Taiheiyo Club’s tree-lined Minori Course for a one-stroke victory over South Korea’s Ha Na Jang.

After two-putting for birdie on the par-five 17th to take a three-stroke lead, Feng made a double bogey on the par-four 18th — holing the winner from 1 1/2 feet. She finished at 13-under 203 in cool conditions after winning a week ago in steamy Malaysia. She has six LPGA Tour victories.

Jang shot her third straight 68. She won last month in Taiwan — beating Feng by a stroke — for her third victory of the year.

McCarron wins Champions Tour event in playoff

Scott McCarron made a birdie putt on the first extra hole and beat Tom Byrum to win the second of three PGA Tour Champions playoff events.

McCarron and Byrum both shot three-under 69s in regulation to finish at 13-under on the James River Course at The Country Club of Virginia in Richmond. Byrum created the tie with a birdie at the 16th hole. Both made pars on the next two holes before McCarron’s winning putt on the extra hole gave him his second victory this season.

Byrum, seeking his first victory in a PGA event since he won the Kemper Open in 1989, putted first on the first extra hole, but his 15-foot putt slid past on the left edge before McCarron rolled a slightly bending putt into the center of the cup.

McCarron had missed a birdie putt on the 54th and final hole of regulation to necessitate the playoff.

Kevin Sutherland, who shot a course-record 63 with seven birdies and an eagle, and Brandt Jobe (67) shared third place, with Fred Funk alone in fifth after finishing his round with four consecutive birdies for a 67. Sutherland also challenged for a coveted top five spot in next week’s Charles Schwab Cup Championship in Scottsdale, Arizona. But Sutherland needed McCarron to falter and when the 51-year-old did not, Sutherland wound up sixth in the standings.

The top five players — two-time defending champ Bernhard Langer, McCarron, Colin Montgomerie, Joe Durant and Miguel Angel Jimenez — will automatically win the championship by winning next weekend’s final event in Arizona.

Olesen cruises to Turkish Airlines Open win

Thorbjorn Olesen won the Turkish Airlines Open in Antalya, securing the biggest payday of his career after nearly throwing away the seven-shot lead he took into the final round.

The 92nd-ranked Dane’s lead was reduced to a single shot at one stage thanks to a brilliant scoring burst from David Horsey of England. But Olesen responded with birdies on the 12th, 14th and 15th on his way to a closing 69 to finish 20 under par and claim the first prize of nearly $1.2 million.

Horsey and China’s Li Haotong shared second place on 17 under after matching rounds of 65, with Austria’s Bernd Wiesberger two shots further back in fourth.