Perry sets event record with win

Kenny Perry has set a goal of winning 20 times before he leaves the PGA Tour.

The 48-year-old earned No. 14 on Sunday at the Travelers Championship in Cromwell, Conn., shooting a seven-under-par 63 to finish with a tournament-record 258, three strokes better than Paul Goydos and David Toms, two other 40-something golfers.

This was Perry’s 11th victory since his 40th birthday.

“Six more wins is a lot of wins,” he said. “I’ve won three last year, two this year already. Who knows? If I can get hot again, get on one of those streaks and sneak in two more by the end of the year, it might be very realistic.”

Perry, whose bogey-bogey finish at Augusta kept him from winning the Masters in April, tied a course record with a 61 on Thursday and led after each of the first two rounds here. But, he trailed by a stroke to Goydos heading into the final round.

He responded by shooting a 32 on the front nine and was up by five strokes heading to the par-four 15th.

Goydos, 45, made a 20-foot eagle putt from the fringe on No. 15 and birdied No. 16. But he missed his birdie putt on No. 17 to the right.

Perry birdied the 15th, and put the tournament away by making birdie on No. 17 after hitting a 164-yard approach to within eight feet.

Perry takes home just over $1 million with the victory, and has now won five times in just over a year, the most of any player on tour. He has 12 top-10 finishes over that span while making every cut. His 22-under-par 258 is tied for the fourth-best 72-hole score in tour history. It beats the old tournament record of 259 set by Tim Norris is 1982.

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LPGA Tour

South Korea’s Jiyai Shin picked up her fifth title in 11 months with a seven-stroke victory at the Wegmans LPGA at Rochester, N.Y.

The 21-year-old star from Seoul shot a one-under 71 to finish in a downpour at 17-under 271. Kristy McPherson and Yani Tseng each shot a 66, the day’s best score, to surge into a second-place tie at 10 under. One behind were Japan’s Mika Miyazato (71) and rookies Haeji Kang (71) of South Korea and Stacy Lewis (74).

Shin carried a four-stroke lead into the final round at the tricky Locust Hill course. She never looked in danger of being caught, even when she picked up two straight bogeys near the close as heavy rain produced a flurry of errors. She earned $300,000, vaulting her to the top of the money list with $1 million.

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Champions Tour

Lonnie Nielsen shot a nine-under 63, passing second-round leader Fred Funk with a flourish on the front side and holding on to win the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open at Endicott, N.Y., by three shots over Funk and Ronnie Black.

Nielsen, who will turn 56 today, finished at 21-under 195, a record in the three-year history of the event.

After going six under over the first four holes to move quickly into the lead, Nielsen made birdie at No. 12 to break a tie with Funk and followed with birdies at Nos. 16 and 18 to win for only the second time on the tour.