Golf Roundup : Jim Thorpe Turns Back Renner, Wins $150,000 in Match Play Tourney

Jim Thorpe took advantage of a bogey by Jack Renner on the par-4 13th hole Sunday and went on to win the Tucson Match Play Championship title with a 4 and 3 victory on the Randolph North Golf Course at Tucson.

Thorpe, 36, who scored the first victory of his PGA Tour career in the Milwaukee Open earlier this season, claimed $150,000 from the total purse of $750,000.

That improved his earnings for the season to a career-best $379,091 and boosted him into fourth place on the money-winning list that closed with this, the last official event of the 10-month PGA Tour.

Earlier in the day, Thorpe scored a 1-up victory over Mac O’Grady to reach the final, while Renner, who earned $90,000, had to battle for 22 holes in his morning semifinal before beating Bob Tway with a 20-foot birdie putt.

Thorpe was able to survive a week in which most of the top players were eliminated in the early rounds. Only Thorpe was able to make the quarterfinals among those in the top 20 in earnings, and only three of the top 30 money-winners made it that far.

“I was confident going in. I knew I could win,” Thorpe said. “It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time on the right kind of golf course.”

Harold Henning built a three-shot lead on the front nine and carried on to win the Tucson Senior Match Play Championship with a 4 and 3 victory over Dan Sikes.

Henning carded only two birdies for his round at Tucson’s Randolph North Golf Course, using numerous bogeys by Sikes to take the $75,000 first prize.

Henning won the match on the par-3 15th hole. He hit a 5-iron within 25 feet of the pin, then sank the putt to seal the victory, the first on the Senior PGA Tour for the South African.

Henning took the tough route to the victory, having to defeat Senior Tour leading money-winner Peter Thomson in Saturday’s quarterfinal round, then beating No. 2 money-winner Lee Elder in Sunday morning’s semifinals.

Defending champion Masahiro Kuramoto birdied the last three holes and won the $326,000 Bridgestone tournament by one stroke at Chiba, Japan, as Isao Aoki missed a 6 1/2-foot putt on the final hole.

Kuramoto, who needed only a six-inch putt for his last birdie, shot a five-under-par 67 in high winds for a 273 total, while Aoki finished at 274 after a final round of 69 over the 7,162-yard, par-72 Sodegaura Country Club course.

Kuramoto earned $58,600 for his third victory of the season. Aoki pocketed $32,600.

Spaniard Severiano Ballesteros shot rounds of 65 and 66 to win the $125,000 Spanish Open at Barcelona by four shots and earn his sixth victory of the season.

Playing 36 holes on the final day because of earlier rain delays, Ballesteros had an eagle and four birdies in his final round to finish with a 14-under-par total of 266 on the 6,560-yard Vallaromanas course.

Ballesteros complained that at the start of the day he had played “like a donkey from La Mancha,” but admitted that he finished “like a pure English thoroughbred.”

Britain’s Gordon Brand Jr., who closed with a 69, took second at 270.