Putts Put Elkington in Money : Golf: Sixth birdie of the day, on the second playoff hole, is worth $180,000. Huston folds.

It took Steve Elkington a while at the Mercedes Championships, but he finally figured out the secret to making putts. You’ve got to make a few changes.

Elkington started with a putter borrowed from Raymond Floyd and Floyd’s stance.

Then he went back to his own putter with Floyd’s stance.

Then he tried his putter with his own stance.

The secret to putting? It’s that old ball and change.

At least that’s what worked Sunday for Elkington, who celebrated a $180,000 six-birdie day with a victory over Bruce Lietzke on the second playoff hole in the $1-million event at La Costa.

Elkington started the day two shots behind John Huston, but played error-free golf that didn’t stop until his 25-footer for birdie disappeared into the hole in the playoff.

Afterward, Elkington was nearly speechless.

“I feel unbelievable,” he said. “I found a lot of courage I didn’t know I had.”

Lietzke picked a bad time to miss a fairway. He blew a one-shot lead when he bogeyed No. 17 after missing both the fairway and the green.

Once he two-putted for bogey, he knew he shouldn’t have.

“Most of the back nine, I felt it was my tournament to win or lose,” he said. “It was. I let that 17th hole jump up and get me.”

Huston knows the feeling. His four-shot lead left in a hurry. He went double bogey, bogey, double-bogey in a three-hole stretch on the front and threw away five shots.

If that wasn’t bad enough, he putted off the green and into the lake on No. 7.

The other player who finished with sort of an empty feeling was Craig Stadler.

The Walrus, who got a two-shot penalty for showing up late Friday, finished fourth at 280 and missed the playoff by, you guessed it, two shots.

Bill Glasson finished third at 279 after shooting 67. There was a four-way tie for 281 and fifth place, including Fred Couples, Tom Lehman, Rick Fehr and Ben Crenshaw.

Lehman and Fehr shot 66, the best score of the day, while Couples had an up-and-down round that featured an eagle, a birdie and three bogeys.

When the day started, Elkington didn’t figure he had much of a chance, but then he didn’t think Huston would fold. Huston was in a tough position, Elkington said, because few of the players in the locker room expected to play and told Huston so.

“I just knew it had to be killing him,” Elkington said. “He had everything to lose.”

Elkington’s 33 on the front nine vaulted him into the lead and he was challenged first by Lee Janzen, then Couples, then Lietzke.

One by one, they fell out, except for Lietzke. He didn’t think he had a shot either when the day began.

“I wasn’t that enthused,” he said. “The most enthused I got was when I found out the Cowboys won. Then the tournament got started and I had the rest of the afternoon to kill.”

Until he got to 17, the 569-yard par 5, it was Lietzke’s show.

He missed the fairway, only the second he missed in the round. His second shot, a 7-iron, traveled only 75 yards.

He missed the green from 224 yards with a 1-iron, chipped badly to 10 feet and two-putted to fall back into a tie with Elkington.

But Elkington didn’t know about Lietzke’s problems. Playing one group in front of Lietzke, Elkington, who also won the tournament in 1992, had missed a 15-foot birdie putt on No. 18.

“I thought I had lost the tournament,” Elkington said.

He was wrong. In the playoff, Elkington and Lietzke both parred the first hole, No. 10.

The next hole was No. 11, a 180-yard par-three. Elkington birdied six of the 16 previous par-threes.

His 25-footer rolled in for his seventh birdie and he watched as Lietzke missed his from a slightly shorter distance.

There’s nothing like making putts, a relieved Elkington said.

“I was filling it up,” he said. “It’s the darndest thing I ever saw.”