Duly Noted
Aided by some timely reminders, D.A. Weibring wins the Senior Players for his first major championship
It took 65 tries, but Weibring finally won a professional major.
The essential secrets to playing winning golf he carried in the left-hand pocket of his slacks, printed neatly on a small piece of notepaper from his Embassy Suites hotel room. A list of random messages intended to conjure positive thoughts filled the page. At the bottom, in all-caps, was the most important: "HAVE FUN WITH IT."
Not exactly the wisdom of Aristotle, but ancient Greek philosophers probably wouldn't have even bothered with such an insane pursuit.
Such words, however, brought comfort to D.A. Weibring. Sporting an 0-for-64 shiner in major-championship competition, the earnest 55-year-old digested tidbits of homespun insights, wove them into a tapestry of technical improvement, and held off a quartet of passionate foes to capture the year's final major on the Champions Tour, the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship.
The details of Weibring's breakthrough victory at the Five Farms East Course at Baltimore CC in Timonium, Md., his fifth on the Champions Tour to match his PGA Tour win total, are more intriguing viewed through the prism of his misty-eyed post-round dissertation. He is an emotional man, especially when he talks about his family, which is unquestionably integral to the process.
"I can't help it," Weibring said haltingly. "It wouldn't be worth it if you didn't have someone to share it with."
Thus, to merely cite cold statistics is to ignore the fact that the heart is good for two a side if it's in the right place. Nevertheless, numbers are unforgiving, and Weibring's final-round, two-under-par 68 and 271 total dealt disappointment to a tightly bunched set of contenders, even though the nine-under winning aggregate was the highest in relation to par since Jim Albus captured the 1991 edition by the same score at TPC Michigan.
One stroke in arrears stood Fred Funk, a native of nearby Tacoma Park, Md., who took over the Charles Schwab Cup lead from Jay Haas but couldn't realize his long-sought goal of winning in his home state. Two back were Ben Crenshaw, Jeff Sluman and third-round leader Nick Price, each driven by extra motivation to amend recent shortfalls.
"I didn't play my best golf," Weibring admitted after winning the biggest check of his career, $390,000. "I've played better in the final round and haven't been rewarded. It was just my time. I did always believe I could win a major championship. Sometimes things happen, and they just fall into place."
They did for Weibring (who came closest to a regular-tour major with ties for third at the 1987 PGA Championship and the 1988 U.S. Open), who trailed Price by four strokes early in the final round. But the Zimbabwe native, winner of three major titles, couldn't sustain the performance that lifted him to 10 under after he birdied two of the first four holes. Three bogeys in a four-hole stretch starting at the par-3 seventh left the door open, and all sorts of worthy candidates stepped up to the welcome mat.
Haas and Crenshaw, the 36-hole leader, each owned a share of the top spot on the back nine before tripping. Crenshaw, despite a closing bogey, posted a 66, tied for the low round of the day with Funk, whose 15-foot birdie attempt at the home hole nearly forced a playoff. Haas fell back after bogeying two of his last three for 68. Sluman, who classified his first go-around in the senior majors as "kinda stinky," made a late burst in firing 69 on the heels of the week's low round Saturday, an unblemished 64.
Somehow, Weibring kept his nose out front, though not without angst.
Clarity didn't come until the par-4 17th, when Weibring somehow scraped in a 10-footer for par while Price was sizing up a slick three-foot birdie putt. Weibring's body language suggested a misfire, but it snuck in the lower right corner. Price, above the hole, couldn't get the tying stroke down.
