Crenshaw All Penick, No Panic : Golf: With late former mentor as his “15th club,” he steadies emotions and finishes with 68 to win second Masters.

Maybe it is true what they say, that some things are just meant to be.

Fate, if that’s what it is, converted another one Sunday, the one with a golf club in his hands.

“I believe in fate,” Ben Crenshaw said. “Fate has dictated another championship here. I played my heart out.”

On the first Sunday since the death of the most important figure in his life as a golfer, Ben Crenshaw won the Masters, then broke down and wept on the grass on the 18th green of Augusta National.

Crenshaw produced a final-round 68 to win a riveting and emotional second Masters title, to go along with his triumph in 1984 at age 32.

Crenshaw’s 14-under-par 274 added up to a one-shot victory over his friend, Davis Love III, who closed with an incendiary 66 that probably should have been good enough to win.

But Crenshaw said he had an advantage.

“I had a 15th club in my bag,” Crenshaw said. “And it was Harvey.”

Legendary golf teacher Harvey Penick placed the first club in 7-year-old Ben Crenshaw’s hands and was his teacher ever since. Penick died at 90 last Sunday in Austin, Tex.

Crenshaw, who chartered an airplane with Tom Kite to attend Penick’s funeral on Wednesday, said he felt he was capable of something great this week on some of golf’s most famous fairways and greens.

“It was magical here,” Crenshaw said.

“I don’t know how it happened. When you’re 43, you don’t know how many more chances you are going to get again.

“You know how this tournament has gone. Fate is what decides it a lot of times. It was like someone put their hand on my shoulder and sort of guided me through.”

It was a strange and wonderful ride. Crenshaw began the day tied for the lead and trailed Love by a shot when Love birdied the par-five 15th.

By then, the Masters was looking like a three-horse race between Crenshaw, Love and Greg Norman. One by one, the other contenders dropped out: Fred Couples, Scott Hoch, Phil Mickelson, Curtis Strange, Brian Henninger.

Their pitfalls varied: the bunkers or the water or under the azalea bushes.

Jay Haas and Norman finished tied for third at 277, Norman left to ponder the 17th for a while.

He three-putted for bogey, and that hurt him almost as much as he was helped this week by playing the par-five holes in 12 under.

“You have to do something special to win here,” Norman said.

Crenshaw did. He tied Love with a birdie on the 13th, chipping to 15 feet and rolling in the putt.

And as great as that shot felt, it couldn’t compare to how Crenshaw felt when he took a two-shot lead on the 17th. Love was already done, waiting to see if Crenshaw would falter in the last group.

Part of him was hoping Crenshaw wouldn’t, especially after getting a phone call from him Monday night after Penick’s death.

Love didn’t earn a spot in the Masters until winning at New Orleans last week, the day Penick died. Love’s late father was coached by Penick at the University of Texas, and Davis was close to Penick as well, only not as close as Crenshaw and Kite.

“(Crenshaw) called me and said, ‘You don’t need to go to the funeral, you need to stay here and practice and get ready for the tournament. You had a long week to get here, and Harvey and your Dad want you to stay and get ready.’

“He really helped me. He is the one that lost one of his closest friends, and he was trying to support me. He knew how bad I wanted to play here and what it meant to me. So I am really happy that he pulled it out.”

Crenshaw won with birdies on the par-three 16th and par-four 17th. He sent a six-iron to within five feet on the first, then curled in a rolling 13-footer on the next after a nine-iron got him close.

That was the putt that won the Masters.

“I played it like a dream,” Crenshaw said. “I hit the prettiest putt I ever hit. I was so thrilled at hitting the absolute perfect putt. I mean, I saw that ball maybe (a foot) outside the left lip at a certain speed and the second it left my putter, I could tell it was heading home.

“I will never forget 16 and 17 as long as I live.”

To be sure, the sight of Crenshaw with a putter in his hands may now earn a place in golf lore, like Gary Player’s bunker shots, Ben Hogan’s irons or Jack Nicklaus off the tee.

Love knows the feeling. Watching Crenshaw finish on TV wasn’t easy.

“It’s hard,” he said. “You have to watch Ben Crenshaw putt 10-footers for birdie, and you know he is going to make them.”

With a two-shot lead, Crenshaw finished No. 18 with a bogey, but it didn’t matter. He said he lost focus with his second shot and missed the green with an eight-iron.

Needing to make a putt from 18 inches for bogey to win it, Crenshaw had a little talk with himself.

“ ‘God,’ I said, ‘if you can get through this little foot-and-a-half putt, then you can go ahead and cry,’ ” he said. “I don’t know how I got through it.”

Crenshaw made the putt, dropped his putter, lost his hat, lowered his head and wept openly. He was crying for joy, crying for relief, crying for Harvey.

“I mean, Kathy Whitworth, I saw her at the funeral, and she said he came as close to living a perfect life as anyone I ever met. Now, can you imagine a compliment like that?

“He was the kindest, gentlest individual that always had time for you. He gave us life lessons, no question about it.”

Then it was fate that took over?

“Yes, I do believe,” Crenshaw said. “I can’t describe it, I don’t know what to really say to you, but that is usually what happens around here.”

Masters Notes

Amateur Tiger Woods, who made his first cut in a pro tournament this week, wrote a letter to the officers, tournament staff and members of Augusta National, thanking them for his week. Woods, who shot a 72 and finished at 293, 19 shots behind Ben Crenshaw, said in his letter the Masters was “the most wonderful week of my life.” Woods went on to say, “It is here that I left my youth behind and became a man. For that I will be eternally grateful.” Woods left for Stanford Sunday night and will be in history class at 9 a.m. today. He plans on playing in both the U.S. Open and British Open. . . . Runner-up Davis Love III had never finished in the top 10 in a major before. “I won’t have to hear that anymore,” Love said. . . . Fred Couples was 10 under and two shots off the lead until he got to No. 11. He bogeyed three in a row and shot 40 on the back nine to finish in a tie for 10th. . . . Curtis Strange didn’t fare much better on No. 13 10 years after hitting two balls into the water there on the last day in 1985. He was forced to hit a ball from under an azalea bush left-handed, and it went over the green into the water. That finished Strange, who wound up ninth. . . . Crenshaw’s victory was his 19th in a career that began in 1973. His caddy at the Masters is Carl Jackson, who has caddied for him at Augusta since 1976.

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Finish Line

Player: Sunday/Total

Ben Crenshaw: 68--274

Davis Love: III 66--275

Greg Norman: 68--277

Jay Haas: 70--277

David Frost: 71--279

Steve Elkington: 72--279

Phil Mickelson: 73--280

Scott Hoch: 73--280