Points Prevails in Three-Man Playoff

Four weeks ago, it took vandals about an hour to take a 60-ton earthmover for a turf-carving joyride on the fourth hole at Rancho Cucamonga’s Empire Lakes Golf Course.

It took the Buy.com Tour players four days to finish carving up the rest of the course.

D.A. Points sank a four-foot birdie putt on the third playoff hole to hold off Australian Rod Pampling and Mark Wurtz to win the Inland Empire Open with a tournament-record, 21-under-par 267.

Points pocketed $76,500 out of the $425,000 purse, moved up from 128th to 38th on the money list and earned an exemption on the Buy.com Tour through 2002.

“I try hard to not try very hard,” said Points, whose previous claim to fame was serving as a quarterfinal speed bump for Tiger Woods in the 1996 U.S. Amateur. “Generally, I get in the way of my own progress. This time, I stayed out of my own way.

“This year, I wasn’t sure [if I would win]. I know as far as my game and my physical ability, I knew I had the talent.”

Points stayed out of his way long enough to survive two three-putts in regulation and the relentless Pampling. With Points and Pampling each shooting a 68 on Sunday, Wurtz climbed into the playoff with a final-round 65.

Wurtz was gone after the first playoff hole, the 552-yard 18th.

Points and Pampling parred the 206-yard ninth and returned to 18 for the third playoff hole.

Pampling found the fairway and the right greenside rough. Points found the rough too, but flushed a six-iron to the middle of the first tier, 60 feet away.

Pampling left his chip eight feet short and missed the birdie putt, but Points lagged to four feet and sank his.

“After a while, you get in a zone where you don’t think about making bogey. It’s just what hole are you going to birdie next,” Points said.

The lead changed hands several times Sunday.

Besides Points, Pampling and Wurtz, PGA Tour veteran Curt Byrum and Steve Haskins, who led after three rounds, took turns in front.

Byrum, who shot a 65, finished tied for fourth with Kevin Pendley and Jeff Gove, who missed a birdie putt on No. 18 that would have put him in the playoff.

Haskins, who fired a course-record 62 in the first round, had two bogeys and a double-bogey on the par-three ninth, when he found the water and dropped into a tie for seventh at 19 under.

Casey Martin shot a 70 and tied for 52nd at 11 under.

Few players had trouble with No. 4, which suffered an estimated $100,000 of damage in the early hours of Sept. 2, when vandals carved trenches 10 feet wide and two feet deep in zigzag fashion into the fairway from 135 yards in.

Three trees, including a 25-foot sycamore that is the hole’s signature feature, were pulled down by the roots.

And the front right third of the green was ripped out to the drain tiles, with the earthmover missing the main irrigation line by six inches.

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s detective Bob Emerson said he has no leads in the case.

Course superintendent Pat Truchan imported a 12-man crew from two Orange County courses, Tustin Ranch in Tustin and Tijeras Creek in Rancho Santa Margarita, to replant 5,000 square feet of sod on the fairway, replant the trees and clean the green.

“If you didn’t know what happened, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference,” 2000 champion Scott Petersen said.