Senior Golf : Gary Player Shoots 68 to Beat Charles in Playoff

Defending champion Gary Player shot a 4-under-par 68 over Medinah’s challenging No. 3 course Monday to score a two-stroke victory over Bob Charles in an 18-hole playoff for the U.S. Senior Open golf title.

Player’s victories in consecutive Senior Opens marked the second time that feat has been accomplished. Miller Barber, who also won in 1982, won the 1984 and ’85 Opens.

“I was swinging so well that I had supreme confidence, and you don’t often have that in a round of golf,” Player said. “I used the same swing from the practice tee to the end, which is very, very rare for me.”

Player, 52, of South Africa, grabbed a two-stroke advantage that he never yielded when he birdied and Charles bogeyed the 404-yard No. 3 hole. Player sank a 12-foot putt on the hole. Charles was forced to play his approach from the trees on the right side of the fairway after an errant tee shot.

Player, whose round was bogey-free, built on that lead with two more birdies before the turn. He finished the front nine in 3-under 33.

Charles made another bogey, but offset that with a birdie at No. 5 to complete the front nine in 37. He made three more birdies on the back for 34, finishing with a 70.

“Probably, this is one of the biggest disappointments in my career. . . . I haven’t won a major in Senior golf,” Charles said.

Player won the $65,000 first-place purse. Charles received $32,500. Both finished regulation play in even-par 288.

The 18-hole playoff became necessary when Charles, a 52-year-old New Zealander and the Senior Tour’s leading money winner, blew a three-shot lead Sunday over the final four holes of the 6,881-yard layout.

Charles mounted his final charge on the backside Monday with birdies at Nos. 11, 14 and 17, the last on a twisting 25-foot putt on the toughest green of the course, to move to two-under.

But Player responded to the challenge with a birdie of his own at No. 13 and parred the rest of the way home.