Golf Roundup : Strange Gains Victory After Nicklaus Falters

Curtis Strange, given breathing room when Jack Nicklaus’ challenge faltered in the stretch, Sunday won the $650,000 Canadian Open at Oakville, Ontario.

Strange, the first three-time winner of the year, finished with a 73 for a nine-under-par total of 279, two strokes better than Nicklaus and Australia’s Greg Norman, who tied for second.

The victory, worth $86,506, increased Strange’s leading money-winning total to $520,081 and put him in position to break the PGA tour’s single-season record of $530,808 set by Tom Watson in 1980.

The win was the eighth of Strange’s career and followed victories this season in the Honda tournament and the Las Vegas Invitational.

Nicklaus, needing a 4-4-4 finish to claim his first victory of the season, struggled home 5-5-5 instead, matching par 72 and recording his seventh second-place finish in the Canadian Open. He has never won the tournament.

Norman, meanwhile, birdied the final hole to gain a tie for second with a closing 73 on the Glen Abbey Golf Club course.

“Obviously, I’m very disappointed,” Nicklaus said. “I just didn’t play very well the last nine holes. I just kept getting myself in trouble.”

While Nicklaus and Norman applied most of the pressure to Strange, he also was under fire from Fuzzy Zoeller, who once closed to within a single shot. But Zoeller bogeyed two of the last five holes, did not birdie either of the closing par-5 holes, the 16th and 18th, and finished with a 72 that put him in a tie for fourth at 282 with Johnny Miller, Peter Jacobsen, Tommy Valentine and Bill Sander.

Miller had a wildly erratic round of 67 that included seven birdies, an eagle three on the 18th, a bogey and a horrendous triple-bogey seven on the ninth. Valentine, Jacobsen and Sander each had a 70.

Nicklaus, who started the day’s play three shots back, tied Strange with a birdie on the eighth hole, but Strange went ahead with a birdie on the ninth.

He was not headed again.

Norman, playing in the final threesome with Nicklaus and Strange, dropped out of the title chase with bogeys on the 14th and 15th.

The par-5 16th was critical.

Nicklaus, trailing by one, reached the green in two. Strange hooked his drive and took three to get there and eventually made par. Nicklaus ran his eagle putt to within two feet of the hole, then missed the short one for the birdie that would have put him in a tie.

At St. Germain-en-Laye, France, Spain’s Severiano Ballesteros won his third French Open title with a final-round 69 for a 72-hole score of 263 that left him two shots ahead of Scotland’s Sandy Lyle.

Lyle fired a 64 over the par-71, 6,022-yard St. Germain-en-Laye course to mount a strong challenge and finished at 265.

Lyle, who made eight birdies, finished with five successive sub-par holes to cut into Ballesteros’ big initial lead. The Spaniard had, however, started the day with a cushion of seven strokes.

“When you start seven ahead, you have to play a bit safe and that’s not easy,” Ballesteros said.

Ballesteros, 28, picked up a winner’s prize of $16,500 for his 21-under-par victory. Lyle earned $11,000.

West German Bernhard Langer shot a 67 and finished in a tie for third place with Argentina’s Eduardo Romero, who had a 70.

Ballesteros went into the back nine with a lead of six stokes but made his only serious mistake at the 10th hole. In trees off the tee, he had to hack out one-handed and made a double bogey-6 to see his lead narrowed to four. However, birdies at the 11th, 14th and last holes were enough to salvage the victory.