Flesch works overtime to win

He battles through 38 holes to earn victory in Champions event.

DULUTH — Surviving what passes for an endurance test in golf, breaking out of a rush-hour traffic jam atop the leaderboard, Steve Flesch won the Mitsubishi Electric Classic on Saturday in a playoff in the gathering darkness.

It required 38 holes Saturday to do it, Flesch winning on the second playoff hole with a birdie on the par-5 18th hole at TPC Sugarloaf.

A three-way playoff matched one of the enduring champions of the over-50 PGA Tour Champions, Bernhard Langer, against two players seeking their first victory on the over-50 circuit — Flesch and Scott Parel.

Augusta’s Parel, a late-comer to pro golf, a University of Georgia computer-science grad (Class of 1986), came the farthest to make the playoff. He shot a tournament record-tying 64 in the third round to join Langer and Flesch at 11 under through regulation.

To the par-5 18th hole they went to start the playoff, with the sundown clock ticking.

First to fall was Langer, the two-time Masters champion and winner of 36 titles on the over50 tour. Both Flesch and Parel hit the green in two and two-putted for birdie.

Back to the tee at 18 they went. Parel and Flesch flushed drives into the fairway, but Parel blinked first, hitting into the lake guarding the front of the green. He would bogey. Flesch got up and down from the bunker behind the green to finish with a birdie.