Stricker can’t seal the deal
Poor finish opens door for Lehman
Steve Stricker had victory in his grasp. And then it slipped away. The Madison golfer, who was making his Champions Tour debut, had a twostroke lead with three holes to play in the Tucson Conquistadores Classic. But Tom Lehman took advantage Stricker’s late mistakes to win the tournament in Tucson, Ariz.
Lehman closed with two birdies and a par for a 7-under 66 and a one-stroke victory over playing partner Stricker. The 58-year-old Lehman is coming off arthroscopic surgery on his right knee.
Stricker followed his secondround 63 with a 70. He was trying to become the 19th player to win in his first start on the 50and-over tour and first since Miguel Angel Jimenez in 2014.
But the roof caved in on him down the stretch.
Stricker bogeyed the par-3 16th, matched Lehman with a birdie on the par-5 17th, and bogeyed the par-4 18th after hitting a 3-wood drive left into the water.
“I clawed my way back and I
took a couple-shot lead going up to 16 there,” Stricker said. “I threeputt and he makes birdie and that was really the tournament. The drive on the last, which I thought was a good one, it was 300 yards to that water there on that line and I hit a 3-wood and we thought we had it into the wind, so I don’t know how it went so far.”
Stricker turned 50 on Feb. 23. The 12-time PGA Tour winner will captain the U.S. Presidents Cup team in September. He missed the cut last week in the PGA Tour’s Valspar Championship.
“He played quite well himself,” Lehman said. “He has nothing to be ashamed of. I can assure you, he played outstanding golf and I just made a couple more putts.”
PGA Tour: Marc Leishman holed a 50foot eagle putt on the 16th hole to take the lead, and he stayed there with two tough pars at the end to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, Fla.
In a final hour that featured four players having at least a share of the lead, Leishman is the only one who didn’t blink.
His final act was a pitch-and-run from 45 yards away on the closing hole at Bay Hill that ran out to 3 feet. He calmly made the par putt for a 3-under 69 and one-shot victory over Kevin Kisner and Charley Hoffman.
Rory McIlroy had as good a chance as anyone, storming into a share of the lead by hooking a wedge around a tree, over the water and over the green on the 16th, then nearly holing the eagle chip.
He had a 30-foot birdie putt to tie for the lead on the 18th, and after seeing that Leishman had made eagle on the 16th, gave it a good run. The putt went 8 feet by and he three-putted for a 69 to finish two shots back.
LPGA Tour: Anna Nordqvist shot a 4-under 68 to hold off fellow major champions Ariya Jutanugarn, Stacy Lewis and In Gee Chun by two strokes in the Bank of Hope Founders Cup in record 96-degree heat at Desert Ridge in Phoenix.
Nordqvist finished at 25-under 263, two strokes off the record that Sei Young Kim matched last year at Desert Ridge. The 6-foot Swede had a tournament-record 61 on Saturday to take a two-stroke lead into the final round.
Jutanugarn and Lewis also shot 68, and Chun had a 66.