Perry drives home point
Withstands Triplett for 4th major
PEABODY — Score one for the bombers.
During Saturday’s press conference following his round, Kenny Perry said that in a match play format he would much rather face a bomber than a control player.
For the first three days of the 38th U.S. Senior Open, Kirk Triplett was on cruise control as he made his way around Salem Country Club.
Perry was definitely the bomber of the duo, typically 15 to 25 yards longer off the tee, and yesterday he was also the steadier of the two, playing bogey-free to win after a 2-under 68 gave him a 2-shot win at 16-under. His 264 total set a record for fewest strokes, 3 better than his winning score in 2013 at Omaha when he also came from behind, and Hale Irwin’s 2000 win at Saucon Valley. Perry is also the first to win with a bogey-free final round since Bernhard Langer in 2010 at Sahalee.
“For the last two years, I have struggled. I haven’t done very well,” said Perry, a winner of four majors on the Champions Tour. “Played very poorly, average golf, didn’t know where I was going, what I was doing.”
Perry claimed the Francis Ouimet Trophy and a check for $720,000.
Perry immediately put the pressure on yesterday, birdieing the first hole and hit each of the first six greens, adding another birdie at the par-5 sixth.
“I knew I needed to get off to a good start and I was able to shoot 2-under on that front nine,” he said. “That front nine is tough with some of those pin placements and everything.”
Triplett was scrambling early, saving par at No. 2, but dropped a shot at No. 3 when his chip from just off the green failed to climb the ridge and slid back down.
While Triplett birdied No. 4, he gave it right back on No. 5 by 3-putting the par-3, the second being a lip out on the right side from about 3 feet.
The lead grew to 4 at the turn as Triplett made bogeys at Nos. 8 and 9, his 38 on the front side was 4 more than it took him on any other day.
“I didn’t have the game to do it (yesterday). I just didn’t play very well. I was off balance right from the start,” said Triplett, who closed with a 71 and finished 14-under 266, the lowest Senior Open score for a non-winner. “Kenny played beautifully. I was beating myself. I was just trying to make some solid contact.”
Triplett seemed to have a little life walking off the 15th tee, making a birdie at the par-5 to get within 3 and Perry in trouble at the par-3 in the rough on the left side to a tough pin placement.
Perry played safely out to the right, leaving himself 24 feet. While he may have been playing for a bogey 4, he buried the putt to keep the lead at 3.
“To me, that was unreal that putt went in the hole. It really was,” he said. “That I had the nerve to hit that putt with that perfect speed, to make that putt at that stage of the tournament with him up there close, going to make par. For me to knock it in in front of him, that was huge. That gave me a lot of confidence.”
It was a putt he worked on a bit during the practice rounds.
“Doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to make it, but at least I knew the break. I knew what I was going to do,” he said. “That putt won me the tournament, by far.”
Triplett cut his deficit to 2 with a birdie at No. 16, but that was as close as he could get. Perry could breathe a sigh of relief at No. 18 when Triplett’s 23-foot birdie bid slid by the hole, meaning he could 2-putt from 5 feet and still win the title.
The second putt was never needed.
It was going to take a near flawless round for anyone to put a scare into the final group and that challenge never materialized on the Donald Ross layout that played about three-quarters of a stroke harder than Saturday.
Brandt Jobe, Saturday’s star, got to 11-under with a birdie at No. 7, but promptly gave it back at the next. He finished even for the day and grabbed third place, 7 shots back.
Tom Lehman was 3-under through eight to get to 10-under, only to give one back at No. 9. He finished in fourth along with Fred Couples at 8-under. Neither player had a round over par this week, each finishing the weekend with rounds of 70 and 69.
“I really feel like if you shoot 1-, 2-, 3-under par every day, you played quite well,” said Lehman. “To shoot four days 4-under is really pretty spectacular.
“But that’s Kenny Perry. That’s the kind of player he’s always been. When he gets going, he really gets going. He makes a lot of putts. He hits it so long that he shortens up every golf course that he plays so therefore if the putter is working he’s going to make a lot of birdies.”
Perry certainly made his share of them, 21 to be exact, the most in the field.