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Golf Roundup : Norman Outlasts Mize in Playoff

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Greg Norman sank a two-foot putt for par on the sixth playoff hole Sunday to defeat Larry Mize and win the $500,000 Kemper Open golf tournament in Bethesda, Md.

Norman’s final putt was merely a formality after Mize put his approach shot into the water and dumped his next shot into another water hazard on the other side of the green.

Norman earned $90,000 and Mize collected $54,000 after the longest playoff on the pro tour since the 1983 Phoenix Open went eight extra holes.

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Norman trailed Mize by three strokes at the start of the final round, but shot a six-under-par 66. Then he watched Mize barely miss a 25-foot putt on the 18th hole that would have given him a 68 and the victory.

Norman and Mize, who finished with 11-under-par scores of 277 after four rounds at the par-72 Congressional Golf Course, each parred the first five extra holes.

On the final hole, Mize ran into trouble, while Norman left his approach shot about 25 feet from the pin and two-putted.

It was Norman’s fourth tournament victory of his career, and his second Kemper in three years.

Pat Bradley moved halfway toward a sweep of the Grand Slam events when she rallied from a four-shot deficit midway through the final round to finish with a four-under-par 68 and win the $300,000 LPGA Championship in Mason, Ohio.

Bradley won the Nabisco Dinah Shore for her first major earlier this year. The remaining Grand Slam events are the U.S. Women’s Open and the du Maurier tournament.

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Bradley, who entered the final round four shots behind Ayako Okamoto, finished with an 11-under-par 277 total.

Patty Sheehan, the 1982 and 1983 LPGA champion, finished second at 278 after firing a final-round 67.

Bradley bogeyed No. 17 as her lead fell to one shot over Okamoto and Sheehan, but she rolled in a 12-foot birdie putt on the par-5 finishing hole to assure the victory.

The win was worth $45,000 to Bradley, already the tour’s leading money-winner and the only woman golfer to surpass $2 million in career earnings. It was her fourth major title and first LPGA Championship.

South African Gary Player outlasted Argentine Roberto De Vicenzo in a four-hole playoff to win the Denver Post seniors tournament at Castle Rock, Colo.

The victory, worth $37,500, was the third this season for Player and the fourth since he joined the Senior Tour late last year. Player and De Vicenzo finished 54 holes at eight-under-par 208.

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Player won with a par on the 14th hole when De Vicenzo missed the green and took a bogey.

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