‘Radar’ Is Jammed During Approach; Stewart Wins PGA

The hare beat the tortoise Sunday afternoon at Kemper Lakes Golf Club to win the 71st PGA championship.

The double twist on Payne Stewart’s one-shot victory over Mike Reid was that he had to come from behind to do it.

The flamboyant Stewart, who dresses in technicolor and talks in stereo, birdied four of the last five holes en route to a five-under-par 31 on the back nine.

Reid--quiet, thin, deliberate, colorless and playing three groups behind Stewart--bogeyed the 16th after driving in the water. Then he double-bogeyed the 17th because he pushed a 30-inch putt off the right lip of the cup.

When Reid, playing in the final group, pulled his seven-foot birdie putt on the 18th past the left edge of the cup, Stewart had his first major championship and $200,000 with a 12-under-par total of 276.

“Man,” shouted the 32-year-old Stewart in the press room, “this is unbelievable.”

“Aw, shucks,” whispered the 35-year-old Reid. “Life goes on.”

Reid, whose lead over the field was four after four holes and three with three holes to play, wound up in a tie for second place with Curtis Strange and Andy Bean, who had a final round 66. Dave Rummells finished fifth at 278 and Ian Woosnam was sixth at 279.

Usually, major golf championships are won by one player or lost by another. This time both of those things happened.

Reid, who led after 18, 36 and 54 holes, began unraveling when the cut-fade shot he tried to play off the tee at the 469-yard, par-four 16th wound up in the water that extends up the right side. Reid’s nickname on tour is “Radar” because of his driving accuracy.

“But I guess the Russians must have been transmitting,” he joked weakly, “because my radar just got zapped.”

From there Reid had to lay up short of the green. And only by holing a curling 12-footer was he able to avoid a double-bogey.

His four-iron on the par-three 17th ran into the back fringe 45 feet past the hole. Then he fluffed a sand wedge that left him 15 feet short and straight downhill. His first putt rolled 2 1/2 feet past. And, he said later, he “hurried” his next one. When it lipped out, Reid had three-putted for the first time all week.

Suddenly he was standing on the 18th tee needing a birdie 3 merely to get in a playoff. He made par.

Stewart, meanwhile, began the final round six shots behind Reid and gave little indication of what lay in store when he plodded through the the front nine in par 36.

When he got to the 10th tee he told ABC-TV commentator Jerry Pate that he felt he might shoot 31 on the back side. And, he told Pate, “That might win.”

“Look what happened,” he said later.

Stewart sank birdie putts of one inch, two feet, 18 feet and 12 feet on the 11th, 15th, 16th and 18th holes, respectively. He also chipped in for birdie from 25 feet on the 14th and saved par on 13 with a 15-footer.

Walking off the 18th tee, Stewart learned from spectators of Reid’s errant drive. The rest happened much too fast for Reid.

“Sports is like life with the volume turned up,” said Reid, who stopped six times to compose himself during his post-round interview. “The friendships are a little tighter and the nights are a little longer like this one will be while I try to figure out what happened.”

Many predicted Stewart would win his first major championship sooner. Others said he was running out of chances. He was a first-round leader at this year’s U.S. Open. And he was two shots off the lead going into the final round of the British Open last month in Scotland. He finished tied for 13th in the former and tied for eighth in the latter.

“I didn’t falter today,” he said.

Reid did. After completing his third round early Sunday morning because of Saturday’s rain delay, Reid predicted he would be nervous for the afternoon round. “There are always butterflies,” he said. “Sometimes they are playing hockey.”

Maybe Reid’s problem Sunday was a lack of bad weather for the first time in three days. He grew up in Seattle and loved the rain. After it would chase all the other golfers off the course, Reid would stay by himself. After winning the World Series of Golf last year in Akron, Reid talked about it.

“With no one out there, you could be anyone you wanted to be,” he said.

The year before that he won his first PGA tournament, the Tucson Open, after 11 winless years on the tour. He later described the feeling he had walking up the 18th fairway with his victory virtually assured. “I kept thinking about ways the roof might fall in,” he said.

The year before that he became the first player in tour history to make more than $1 million in prize money without winning a tournament.

This time the roof fell in.

“Any time in a major when you post a score like Payne did, the other guys are going to look at the leader board,” said Bean, whose 66 included seven birdies and was the low round of the day. “It always gets a little tight coming down the last couple of holes no matter what the tournament is.”

Stewart disagreed. “This is not the Buick Open,’ he said. “In the last nine holes of a major you can do some unbelievable things.”

Good and bad.

“I feel sorry for Mike Reid,” Stewart said. “But his misfortune is my gain.”

PGA Notes

The 10 automatic qualifiers for the U.S. Ryder Cup team are: Mark Calcavecchia, Curtis Strange, Chip Beck, Payne Stewart, Tom Kite, Paul Azinger, Fred Couples, Ken Green, Mark O’Meara and Mark McCumber. Team captain Raymond Floyd will announce his two wild-card selections Tuesday. The U.S. team plays the European team next month in Great Britain. . . . After a third-round 81, Arnold Palmer closed with a two-under 70 to finish the tournament at 293, five over par. Jack Nicklaus finished with a 72 for 285. Tom Watson had a 71 for 281, five shots back of winner Payne Stewart. . . . The site for next year’s PGA Championship is Shoal Creek in Birmingham, Ala., where Lee Trevino won the PGA in 1984. . . . Davis Love III scored a hole-in-one on the final round with a 3-iron on the par-three 13th. Scott Hoch aced the same hole with a two-iron early in the morning during the third round. . . . Curt Byrum, a first-time tour winner three weeks ago at the Hardees tournament, dropped seven strokes to par on the second through fourth holes with a bogey, a triple bogey and another triple bogey. . . . The last start-to-finish winner of the PGA Championship was Hal Sutton in 1983 at Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades. Floyd did the same the year before at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa. . . . If Strange had won here, he would have been only the third player in the ‘80s to win two majors in one year. Nicklaus did it in 1980 (U.S. Open and PGA); Watson did it in 1982 (U.S. Open and British Open). . . . Mike Reid on the emotions he contained so well all week but struggled to control when it was over: “I cry at supermarket grand openings.”