GOLF ROUNDUP : Sheehan Wins Third LPGA Championship

Patty Sheehan won the LPGA Championship a third time, scrambling for par on the 18th hole to close out a two-under-par 69 for a one-stroke victory over Lauri Merten Sunday at Bethesda, Md.

Sheehan, who in March secured a spot in the LPGA Hall of Fame with her 30th tour victory, has won 31 times, and she insists she is not through.

“Look at the problems Pat (Bradley) is having,” Sheehan said. “She won 30 and really hasn’t done much since. I think she lost her motivation.

“I didn’t want that to happen to me. I didn’t want to become complacent, I don’t want to roll over and die. I don’t want to stop and I don’t want to stop trying.”

Sheehan won her fourth major title--and the $150,000 first prize--with a three-foot putt on No. 18. To get there, however, she had to recover from a tee shot that sailed into the gallery and an approach that landed well behind the green.

With a sprinkler hole directly in front of her ball, Sheehan chipped her third shot within three feet of the hole. She dropped the putt into the heart of the cup, then thrust her arms skyward.

“I was very nervous,” she said. “My hands were shaking pretty good.”

Sheehan, 36, of Reno, started the day two shots off the lead but quickly moved in front as third-round leader Cindy Lidback got off to a horrid start en route to a 78. Sheehan made three birdies and a bogey to finish at nine-under 275.

Merten shot a 67 for a 276. Her 31 on the front nine tied a record on the Bethesda Country Club Course, but a bogey on No. 13, her first since the fifth hole Saturday, cost her a shot at a playoff.

“I sort of knew Patty would par that last hole,” Merten said. “She’s too good a player not to.”

Merten moved into contention with five birdies over the first 12 holes, but opened the way for Sheehan by missing a four-foot par putt on No. 13 to go eight under. Minutes later, Sheehan sank a 15-foot birdie putt on 12 to take a two-stroke lead.

Sheehan fell back with a bogey on No. 16, but parred 17 to set the stage for the dramatic finish.

The victory was Sheehan’s second of the season. The first, at the Standard Register Ping, helped get her into the Hall of Fame. Her previous major titles were the LPGA Championship in 1983 and 1984 and the 1992 U.S. Women’s Open.

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Vijay Singh, a relative newcomer to the U.S. tour from Fiji, birdied the third extra hole in a playoff with Mark Wiebe to win the Buick Classic at Harrison, N.Y.

Singh’s winner was set up by a brilliant approach shot that hit the left portion of the green, ran to the back, then caught a slope and trickled down to within four feet of the flag.

Wiebe, who birdied the last two holes of regulation to force a playoff, two-putted from about 35 feet below the hole. Singh hit his birdie putt into the heart of the hole for his first American victory and his 14th around the world.

“Coming here from Europe, I thought it would be very difficult to win in America,” Singh said. “I think this came a little bit early.”

But it didn’t come easily.

For Singh, 30, this was his 11th tournament in the United States this year. He survived a shaky finish in regulation and a scare on the first playoff hole, where Wiebe missed an eight-foot putt that would have won it.

Wiebe, whose last victory came in 1986, and Singh each played the last 18 holes of regulation in 66 and finished the four rounds at Westchester Country Club course in four-under-par 280. It was by three shots the highest winning total in the tournament’s 27-year history.

The victory was worth $180,000 from the total purse of $1 million and pushed Singh’s American earnings for the year to $377,081. Singh won four times in the last three years on the European tour and previously played the Asian and African circuits.

Defending champion David Frost and Lee Janzen missed the playoff by one shot at 281. Frost birdied the last three holes for a 66 and Janzen shot 72.

Singh bogeyed the 17th despite a good break when his drive hit a partially buried boulder far to the right, then kicked back into the fairway. But he flew his second shot into the gallery behind the green and took three to get down.

On the par-five finishing hole, Singh hit his second shot into a greenside bunker. He took a par that eventually set up the playoff.

Wiebe, playing about a half hour behind Singh, closed to within one with a birdie from about five feet on the 17th and rolled in an eight-footer for birdie on the 18th. He made up three shots on the last two holes.

“That’s finishing like Nicklaus,” Wiebe said. “But Nicklaus, he’d probably have birdied the last five.”

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Dave Stockton made a four-foot par putt on No. 18 and won the Southwestern Bell Seniors Classic at Belton, Mo., when Walt Zembriski pushed his par putt to the right moments later from almost the same spot.

Stockton had a one-over-par 71 for the final round and a 54-hole total of six-under 204. Zembriski, the former iron worker who never got to play the regular tour, had a 72 and 205.

Larry Mowry shot a 66 Sunday and tied Zembriski for second.

Five different players either held or shared the lead during the final round, during which gusty winds blew scores higher than they had been the first two rounds of the $700,000 event.

Zembriski, 58, winless on the senior tour since 1989, was one stroke behind Archer and tied with Stockton when his 40-foot chip shot dropped into the cup for an eagle three on 13.

But Stockton drew even on 15 when he made a five-foot birdie putt and Zembriski, whose drive found the rough, missed a 10-footer for par.