Sluman Catches Fire, Stuns the Field in PGA : His 65 Gives Him a 3-Stroke Victory, His First as a Pro, and Puts Him in Some Major Company

The new PGA champion is so laid-back he’s almost falling down, so low-key he’s almost off the scale and so one-dimensional when he talks, he sounds like a dial tone.

So how in the world did Jeff Sluman have such a spectacular round Sunday? Did he borrow it from Seve Ballesteros? True to his nature, Sluman had a simple explanation for shooting a scorching 65, the second-lowest final round in PGA Championship history, to win in a warm Oklahoma breeze.

“Everything kind of clicked . . . It was just one of those days,” said Sluman, a slight, boyish-looking 30-year-old from Florida.

At 5 feet 7 inches, he is the smallest player on the PGA Tour, but he defeated some of the biggest names in golf to win his first tournament as a pro in the last major of the year.

Sluman’s round was only one shot off the course record at Oak Tree Golf Club and was good enough to beat Paul Azinger by three strokes.

Azinger, the third-round leader who could manage no better than a par 71, found no disgrace in being run down from behind.

“He shot 65 to beat me,” said Azinger. “I had a guy who had never won (chasing me), and I thought if I shot par, that might have been good enough. But it didn’t even come close.”

Sluman’s record in the other majors this year offered no clue to his victory in the 70th PGA. At the Masters, he finished in a tie for 45th place, and he missed the cut at the U.S. Open.

So now the champions of the 1988 majors have been decided. Their names are Lyle, Strange, Ballesteros and Sluman.

Sluman?

The same Sluman who lost a playoff to Lyle in the 1987 Tournament Players Championship? The Sluman who shot 76 on the last day of the Byron Nelson this year after he held the third-round lead?

But on this day, no one would beat Sluman as he joined the other three winners of majors.

“It makes me feel pretty good to be in that company,” Sluman said. “Obviously, they’re all great golfers. I’m not claiming to be anywhere in their category, but I guess I can play the game a little bit myself.”

Sluman’s victory made a prophet of Mac O’Grady, who predicted before the tournament started that “some mosquito” would win it.

The only thing that slowed Sluman at all was when a bug landed on his ball on the 11th hole. He waited several minutes for the bug to leave. When it didn’t, he putted the ball anyway and made par.

The Sluman saga began Sunday when he birdied the second hole to pick up a stroke on Azinger and trail by three shots. But the key hole for both Sluman and Azinger was the par-5 5th hole. Azinger, who played the hole four over par for the tournament, bogeyed it. Sluman got an eagle.

That was one of seven eagles made Sunday and 25 in four rounds at Oak Tree, which was supposed to play like some kind of vulture but gave up four holes-in-one. It was Sluman’s eagle that turned the final round around and around again.

Playing one group ahead of Azinger in the next-to-last twosome, Sluman was 115 yards from the pin and took a pitching wedge from his bag to try his third shot. Sluman switched clubs and took out a sand wedge instead.

A slight wind was blowing left-to-right, but Sluman’s shot hit the green and rolled straight into the hole. The understated Sluman was so moved, he tried to give his caddy a high five, but missed. Probably he was out of practice.

When Azinger bogeyed the hole after driving the ball short, Sluman was tied for the lead. One hole later, he took the lead for good.

Azinger three-putted to bogey the 6th and Sluman birdied the 7th at just about the same moment, knocking in a 10-footer. Just like that, Sluman had a two-shot lead.

Azinger, who hadn’t been paying attention to the leader board, was shocked to see it after No. 7.

“I was two behind and I thought I was one ahead,” he said. “He just never hit a bad shot. He just never made a mistake. It just wasn’t my day.”

He managed to make a couple of nice par-saving putts on the 9th and 10th, but even after he birdied the 16th and 17th, Azinger was still two shots behind Sluman with only the 18th left to play.

“Game over,” Azinger said.

Sluman, who was 6 under par for the round after 12 holes, bogeyed the 13th when he chipped to 12 feet and two-putted. That might have given Azinger a tiny opening, but his iron play deserted him, and he couldn’t get the ball close enough to the hole for any birdies.

Sluman’s three-shot lead after 13 went back to four shots at the 15th as soon as he guided an 8-footer into the hole for his fifth birdie.

Azinger’s drive on 18 landed in the rough, and he ended up with a bogey whereas Sluman ended up with a major victory.

For Azinger, the defeat was agonizingly similar to the 1987 British Open at Muirfield when he lost to Nick Faldo on the final two holes. Azinger said there was a difference, though.

“I handed one over and had one taken away,” he said. “It was snatched away. When a guy shoots 65, there’s nothing you can do.”

Azinger was not the only player in the field unable to put any pressure on Sluman. Faldo shot a 71 and finished seven shots back, tied with Tom Kite. Tommy Nakajima’s final-round 67 leap-frogged him into third place, six shots behind Sluman.

First-round leader Bob Gilder finished with a 67, good for a sixth-place tie with David Rummells, who began the day only one stroke off the lead but shot a 75.

The winning score of 272 tied the second-lowest score in PGA Championship history, bettered only by Bobby Nichols, who had a 271 total in 1964.

At only 137 pounds, Sluman is hardly an imposing physical specimen, but Ben Crenshaw said Sluman makes up for it in another area.

“He’s a little guy with a big heart,” Crenshaw said.

With his victory assured, Sluman hugged his caddy, who lifted him in the air. When Sluman accepted the PGA Championship trophy, PGA President J. R. Carpenter helped him hold it.

The PGA became the seventh consecutive tournament to have a first-time winner. It was worth $170,000 to Sluman, who sounded as if he had an exciting evening planned to celebrate his victory.

“Well, I’m staying here with Willie Wood and his family,” Sluman said. “We’ll probably have a couple of beers and talk about it. I might even change a couple of diapers on his little girl. Who knows?”