Golf Roundup : Arnie Has No Need to Charge; He Goes Wire to Wire and Wins by 11

Defending champion Arnold Palmer did not try to hide his pleasure after scoring a record-setting 11-stroke victory in the Seniors Tournament Players Championship Sunday at Beachwood, Ohio.

“I feel like I hit the ball for four days as well as I have for some time,” Palmer said after shooting a 68 final round for a 14-under par 274 total at the Canterbury Golf Club. “I felt I had control of the ball. I didn’t hit more than a few bad shots and I feel very pleased about that.”

The 11-stroke margin eclipsed the previous Seniors record of nine strokes, set by Rod Funseth in the 1983 Hall of Fame Seniors tournament. Palmer’s biggest victory margin ever was 12 shots in the 1962 Phoenix Open.

Palmer, 55, who won 61 regular PGA tournaments, now has won nine tournaments on the Seniors tour. His 72-hole score was the best this year on the Seniors tour, which includes players at least 50 years old, and his $36,000 prize money pushes his total career earnings to $2,429,908.

Gene Littler, Lee Elder, Miller Barber and Charles Owens finished in a four-way tie for second place at 285, three under par.

Palmer, who led after every round with scores of 67, 71, 68 and 68, said: “The last two rounds, the big difference was my putting, and my iron play was very gratifying to me.”

Palmer’s victory was his first this year. He failed to qualify for the U.S. Open last weekend and said that taking two weeks off prior to the tournament gave him a mental boost.

“I had been shooting some bad scores, and it was getting to me,” he said. “I was tired and mentally whipped. I came here feeling much better.”

Billy Casper, Art Wall, Jack Fleck and Peter Thomson were tied for third at two-under par 286 on the par-72, 6,615-yard course.

Wayne Levi sank a 12-foot birdie putt on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff and defeated rookie Steve Pate to win the $500,000 Georgia-Pacific tournament at Atlanta.

Both Levi, claiming his eighth tour victory, and Pate, who had never finished better than 53rd, parred the first extra hole after finishing in a 72-hole deadlock at 273, 15 under par on, the rolling hills of the 7,008-yard Atlanta Country Club course.

Two-time PGA champion Raymond Floyd had a slim chance to force it into a three-way playoff, but narrowly missed a 30-foot eagle putt on the final green and closed with a 70, leaving him one shot behind Levi and Pate.

“Steve and I waited for Ray to finish,” Levi said. “It was a relief when his first putt didn’t go in. Ray Floyd is not someone you want to go up against in a playoff.”

Levi began the day four shots behind third-round co-leaders Danny Edwards and rookie David Frost of South Africa and moved to the top by posting a five-under par 67. Pate, the second-round leader, had a 69.

Levi picked up $90,000 and raised his earnings this year to $158,457 and his career winnings past $1.2 million.

Alice Miller shot a two-under-par 70 at Indianapolis to claim her fourth victory of the year by six strokes and establish an LPGA record for earnings in a season.

Miller, who had only three victories and $374,992 in her first seven years on the tour, finished the 72-hole Mayflower tournament with an eight-under 280.

Jane Blalock, Mary Beth Zimmerman and Beth Solomon shared second with a two-under 286.

The victory in the $250,000 event was worth $37,500. That boosted Miller’s earnings for 1985 to $318,250 and topped the single-season record of $310,399 set in 1982 by JoAnne Carner.

Seve Ballesteros of Spain sank a 40-foot putt on the second extra hole to defeat West Germany’s Bernhard Langer and capture the $150,000 Irish Open at Dublin.

Ballesteros, winner of the Irish Open two years ago, won $25,000 for his first victory since March.

Langer started out four shots off the pace but stormed out of the pack with a course-record 8-under-par 63, despite three-putting twice. That gave the Masters champion a 6-under total 278 and Ballesteros had to birdie Nos. 15, 16 and 17 to shoot 66 and force the playoff.

Langer said he was happy to do well on the 6,836-yard Royal Dublin course after a poor performance in last week’s U.S. Open.

Wales’ Paul Way shot 66 to share third at 280 with compatriot Ian Woosnam, who had a 69 Sunday.

Danielle Ammaccapane of Phoenix won won the the ninth United States Golf Assn. Women’s Amateur Public Links championship by defeating Kristie Kolacny of Grand Junction, Colo., 6 and 5, at Flanders, N.J.

Ammaccapane, who won the NCAA championship in May, took the title match, which ended after 13 holes, by winning the last five holes at the Flanders Valley Golf Course. Her margin of victory was the largest ever in a tournament championship.

John O’Neill of Arcadia shot a four-under par 68 and Sam Rudolph of Santa Barbara one-under par 71 to lead the South over the North, 34 1/2 to 10 1/2, in the team match segment of the 74th California Golf Assn. Amateur Championship at Pebble Beach.

Pearl Sinn of Bellflower High School shot a one-under par 71 to win the CGA high school girls invitational championship. Bryan Pemberton of Pleasanton High won the boys title.