Colbert Wills His Way to Victory

The last two groups trudging uphill into a cold wind on the arduous 17th and 18th holes of the SBC Senior Classic resembled a rag-tag colonial fife-and-drum corps as darkness closed in Sunday.

There was Jose Maria Canizares, the Spaniard coming off his first career victory, blowing on hands that were numb except for a touch of arthritis.

There was Larry Nelson, a Vietnam War veteran and Senior Tour money leader whose nerve damage in his neck is aggravated mostly by looking over his shoulder at the rest of the field.

And there was Jim Colbert, a former Kansas State football player who straps magnets to his back to stave off disk pain and has battled through prostate cancer and operations on both knees in the last three years.

What had been a low-scoring lark for two days at Valencia Country Club became a test of wills down the stretch. So it was no wonder the man who went through serious soul-searching after turning 60 two days earlier emerged the winner.

The man was Colbert, a sawed-off, goateed gamer from Las Vegas. He began the day tied with Nelson and survived several missed putts under 10 feet to finish with a 12-under-par 204 and take a $210,000 purse that hiked his career senior earnings to a pocketful of change short of $10 million.

Colbert’s final-round 70 didn’t match the back-to-back 67s he posted in the first two days, but under the conditions it might have been his best effort. He missed only two fairways and one green.

“In my mind, I want to be the best 60-year-old who ever played,” he said. “I know that’s bragging because there have been great ones.

“But this is one sports league that actually has a social message: If you stay moving and look out for yourself, 50 isn’t old and 60 isn’t old. It’s amazing what you can do.”

Canizares, who won the Toshiba Senior Classic at Newport Beach Country Club last week in a nine-hole playoff, ended the round with six consecutive pars and shot 70, good enough for second at 205.

Nelson never recovered from a double bogey on the par-five ninth hole--the easiest of the tournament--and shot par 72 to tie for third at 206 with Ed Dougherty and Gary McCord.

It was Nelson’s 14th consecutive top-10 finish and the $84,000 he earned increased his 2001 total to $668,960.

The 5-foot-9, 165-pound Colbert birdied the first hole and never trailed, although a bogey on six enabled Nelson to catch him for three holes and a bogey on 11 eventually allowed Canizares and McCord to share the lead with him until 15.

Missed putts on Nos. 12, 13 and 14 cost Colbert a chance to pull away, but he made an eight-footer on par-five 15 for the last birdie by anyone in contention.

“The last four or five holes my teeth were chattering,” he said. “I was hoping it was because I was cold and not because of nerves.”

Positive thinking helped after his long lag putt ran out of steam four feet from victory on 18.

As Colbert lined up for the last putt, he could have recalled missing from about the same distance two weeks ago on the final hole of the Mexico Senior Classic.

Instead he thought back to the one he made to win last year’s Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf with Andy North.

“I had four putts [Sunday] that didn’t seem like they’d miss and they popped out of the hole,” he said. “But you can’t say to yourself it’s not your day. I had to fall back on something and I chose to recall the one I made.”

The putt found the hole and Colbert has a new memory to serve as a confidence booster. This was his 20th Senior PGA victory but first since the 1998 Transamerica.

The trend on the senior tour is longer, more difficult courses that challenge the younger players. Valencia fit the bill. It’s a direction that doesn’t necessarily bode well for old-timers, but one that didn’t hold back Colbert.

“You watch, Trevino will play better right away,” he said.

Nelson, 53, has played just fine lately, but he complimented his colleague on the par-five ninth hole when Colbert belted a three-iron to the green on his second shot.

“Maybe when I’m 60, I’ll be able to hit that high, soft three iron,” Nelson told him.

Colbert felt it was his day much earlier. Like on his first drive.

“I nailed it at one and knew I would do that all day,” he said. “I said to myself, ‘This boy isn’t going away.’ ”

Among the over-60 crowd, Colbert has just arrived.