GOLF ROUNDUP : Trevino Gets a Grip on Victory in Senior Event

Lee Trevino went to his knees in agony a year ago, clutching a damaged left thumb after hitting a shot during the Vantage Championship.

Twelve months later, he was clutching a huge trophy and the biggest check on the Senior PGA Tour after a comeback that put him near the top on the circuit.

Trevino’s second consecutive victory, by five shots, was secured with a six-under-par 66 Sunday at Clemons, N.C. It capped a two-week blitz in which he has jumped from 14th to third on the season’s money list.

The thumb injury--which had bothered him for weeks before reaching a critical stage in this event--forced him out of the 1992 tournament and was career-threatening.

It eventually required surgery and sent Trevino into a lengthy slump. His game deteriorated. So did his spirits.

But that ended with scores of 65, 67 and 66 and a tournament record 198, 18 under par on the Tanglewood course where he won the 1974 PGA Championship. He earned $225,000 from the total purse of $1.5 million--the largest on the senior tour--and increased his season total to $810,124. He has earned $367,500 in the last two weeks and trails only Dave Stockton and Bob Charles on the money list.

“I’ve got four more tournaments,” Trevino said. “If I can win one--before either Stockton or Charles wins again--and then maybe win the big one in Puerto Rico (the season-ending $1-million Senior Tour Championship), I’ve got a chance.”

DeWitt Weaver closed with a 68 for a 203 total and second place. Jim Dent, who played the first two rounds without a bogey and had a one-shot lead going into the final round, bogeyed three holes on the front nine and finished with a 73. He was third at 204.

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John Inman emerged from a five-way playoff with his first tour championship in six years, winning the Southern Open at Pine Mountain, Ga., with a birdie on the second extra hole.

Inman, the 1984 NCAA champion while at North Carolina, had last won in the 1987 Provident Classic.

Sunday, he earned $126,000, his biggest prize, after shooting a two-under-par 70 to tie Mark Brooks, Billy Andrade, Brad Bryant and Bob Estes at 10-under 278 over the Callaway Mountain course.

Inman had shot a course-record 64 on Saturday, which was matched by Brooks on Sunday.

Estes had carried a two-shot lead into the final round, in which he shot 72. He has not won in five years on the tour.

Brooks, Andrade and Bryant bogeyed the first playoff hole, sending Inman and Estes to the second, where Inman’s birdie capped his biggest week.