Robbins Goes the Extra Mile to Win Tournament

Kelly Robbins defeated Val Skinner on the fifth playoff hole Sunday to win a $500,000 LPGA tournament at the new Twelve Bridges Golf Club.

The weary Robbins rolled in an 18-foot birdie putt and then let out a sigh of relief when Skinner was short on a putt from the fringe.

“I was swinging a little tired. My legs were maybe working a little slower than they were earlier in the week,” said Robbins, who won $75,000. She tied the tournament’s best round with a seven-under 64 on Sunday. Skinner shot 65 in the final round. Each finished at 11-under 273 overall in the Twelve Bridges LPGA Classic.

Skinner, who had four consecutive birdies on the 12th through 15th holes to take a one-shot lead, dropped a stroke on the 17th when her second shot--out of a marshy area--rolled into a stake that had been dropped onto the course.

A marshal removed the stake to lower a gallery rope, but left it on the ground in the line of Skinner’s shot. The stake stopped Skinner’s ball short of the fairway, and Skinner had to scramble for a bogey.

“When it [the ball] hit the stake, it killed it and it had a bad lie,” she said. “We should have done a better job of putting down the stake. I just didn’t think it was in the way.”

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Paul Stankowski, who didn’t even know if he would be playing in the BellSouth Classic at the beginning of the week, beat Brandel Chamblee in the first hole of a playoff at Marietta, Ga., for his first PGA Tour victory.

Stankowski is the fourth player in the past five PGA tournaments to earn his initial victory. More important, he became the last player to earn an invitation to the Masters next weekend.

Stankowski almost didn’t get to tee off at Atlanta Country Club, beginning the week as a sixth alternate.

Late Wednesday, he was told he had made the field--the last player to get in--when Steve Hart withdrew because of a bad back.