Palmer-Nicklaus Team Can’t Hold Off Comeback : Golf: Match play won by Floyd-Eichelberger, McGovern-Maggert and Green-Robbins.

It had to happen. The only way a 65-year-old golfer and his 54-year-old partner could win the $2.1-million Diners Club Matches is if there was a grandfather clause.

As it turns out, there wasn’t.

Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus sure didn’t act their age Sunday at PGA West. They led by one hole with one to play, but wound up losing to guys old enough to be their, well, cousins.

Nicklaus and Palmer came from four shots down to take a lead only to see Raymond Floyd, 53, and Dave Eichelberger, 51, win 1-up on the 19th hole in the Senior PGA Tour division.

“I think we both thought we had it won,” Palmer said. “I know I did.”

He had good reason to think so. Floyd and Eichelberger, 4-up through 11 holes, could do nothing while Palmer and Nicklaus found an entire nest of birdies, caught up then went ahead on the 17th hole.

“Early on, it looked like it was going to be a rout,” Floyd said. “But on the 18th tee, I didn’t have much empathy for them.”

Eichelberger tied the match with an 18-foot birdie putt on 18 and won it with a 15-foot birdie putt on 19.

As comebacks or collapses go, the most dramatic Sunday was the one in which Jim McGovern and Jeff Maggert defeated Rocco Mediate and Lee Janzen on the 19th hole, 1-up, to win the PGA Tour division.

Maggert rolled in a short birdie putt in sudden death for an unlikely victory, made possible by the generosity of Mediate and Janzen, who blew a four-hole lead with five to play.

“It wasn’t looking good there,” Maggert said.

The view improved. Three times Mediate and Janzen had putts to win the match and three times they failed, the last time on No. 18 when Mediate missed a five-footer for par.

There was one other comeback, in the LPGA Tour final, where Tammie Green and Kelly Robbins came from two holes down on the back nine to defeat Dottie Mochrie and Julie Inkster, 2 and 1.

Green and Robbins birdied three consecutive holes to get it done, which didn’t surprise Robbins.

“Any time you can make a run like that, things are going to happen,” she said.

Palmer felt the same way. With Floyd and Eichelberger 4-up through 11 holes, Palmer turned to Nicklaus.

“I told him let’s birdie the next four holes,” Palmer said.

They came close with birdies on four of the next five holes and felt like winners for a short while, right up to the moment Eichelberger made his 18-footer on No. 18.

“I turned to Arnie and was just about to ask him when was the last time he won a tournament,” Nicklaus said. “I decided not to say anything at the last minute.”