Laoretti Does It His Way : Golf: The 53-year-old, who had never played on the PGA Tour, wins the U.S. Senior Open championship.

Move over John Daly, the golf world has a new folk hero.

He is Larry Laoretti, a 53-year-old cigar-smoking golfer who won the U.S. Senior Open by four strokes Sunday.

Not since the long-driving Daly won the PGA championship last year has anyone as captivating as Laoretti burst onto the scene.

Laoretti, who never made the PGA Tour, explained the secret of his success: “Smoke six or seven good cigars, drink a little good wine, have a wife that loves you and a good caddie.”

He won his first tournament with a three-under-par 68 final round, capping it off by sinking a 20-foot birdie putt from the fringe off the 18th green.

Before playing partner Al Geiberger had a chance to putt out, Laoretti looked up and saw his 29-year-old wife, Susan, running toward him.

“She blindsided me,” said Laoretti, who didn’t have time to take his trademark cigar out of his mouth before being bearhugged.

For the Laoretti family--a motorhoming crew that includes a 2 1/2-year-old son, Lonnie, and an honorary member, caddie Bob O’Brien--Sunday’s victory was a rich reward after some lean years.

Susan, who met Larry seven years ago when she took lessons from the then-club pro, supported her husband with a store manager’s job while he prepared for the senior tour, then caddied for him for a year and a half, even when she was eight months pregnant.

It wasn’t as bad as it sounds, since they use carts for regular senior tour events. But when you’re splitting the driving, setting up camp and doing the cooking, “there was an awful lot of work to do,” she said.

“I would caddy, I would find the grocery stores, I would find all the things we needed to get ready,” she said.

In the year before he turned 50, in 1989, “he was a Monday rabbit, trying to qualify on Mondays. Those were the tough times.”

To get to their first tournament, they raided their apartment’s change bucket to scrape together $110 for gasoline and meal money.

Laoretti won $2,600 that week and $15,000 the next. “More money than I’d ever seen,” he said.

He ended up making $165,339 in 1990, and was exempt for the 1991 tour, winning $371,097 with three second-place finishes.

With Sunday’s victory, Laoretti earned $130,000. It boosted his earnings this year to $284,632.

“I always believed in him,” Susan said. “I never doubted him.”

Second was Jim Colbert, who closed with a 69 to complete the 72-hole tournament at 279. Defending champion Jack Nicklaus was joined by Dave Stockton, Al Geiberger and Gary Player at 280, a stroke ahead of Chi Chi Rodriguez and Jack Kiefer.

Nicklaus, who shot a 75 on Saturday, had a final-round 67, leaving him in good spirits heading into the British Open. “I’m not sure how I will play, but I’m sure it (the 67) will carry over,” he said.