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By Brett Avery
PGATOUR.COM Contributor

It seems that every time you turn around, Loren Roberts is either winning a Champions Tour event or coming close.

For anyone keeping score he's won five times in just over 30 starts since turning 50 in June 2005. In fact, during that stretch he's practically won more often than he's finished outside the top 10.

But there was a time when Roberts was a nondescript pro, a journeyman who made lots of cash and won nothing.

As in 19 years after his first PGA TOUR start without a victory.

Bay Hill has been kind to Loren Roberts. (Condon/PGA TOUR/WireImage)

Only Bruce Fleisher, who won the 1991 New England Classic in his 21st season, and Isao Aoki of Japan, who took the 1983 Hawaiian Open in his 19th year, had comparable dry spells since 1970.

Hand it to Roberts, though, that he broke through in spectacular fashion in 1994. All but overlooked heading into the final round, he produced a 67 at Bay Hill Club to nudge past Fuzzy Zoeller, Vijay Singh and Nick Price by a shot to win what was rechristened this year as the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

And, in case people were still rubbing their eyes in disbelief in 1995, the man who had lost a U.S. Open playoff nine months earlier shot 272, three lower than 1994, and won by two over Brad Faxon.

"I've finally gotten where I wanted to be," a content Roberts said after that second win, which made him the first repeat winner at Palmer's place.

Ironically, the placid Roberts won on the strength of patient ball-striking and putting at a course built by a man whose swing looked anything but patient and whose every three-footer seemed heart-stopping crucial.

Roberts was one of the shortest players of the era -- he's still outside the top 50 in driving distance against his Champions Tour peers. Bay Hill was then one of the TOUR's longest and toughest sites, 7,114 yards of water, sand and grass with the occasional wind gust thrown in for good measure.

And yet there was Roberts during his inaugural win, hitting 42 of 56 fairways, 58 of 72 greens and averaging 29 putts to take out one of the year's strongest, select fields.

"I've made a lot of money, but that doesn't cut it out here," Roberts said after that first victory, a $216,000 check that raised him to within a whisker of $2.5 million lifetime.

"Until you win a tournament, you're just a day laborer, really working hard to get there. Until you win a tournament, it's easy for people to attach a label to you -- that you make a lot of money but don't want to win. It was starting to bother me the last couple of years."

There were a number of victims in 1994.

Price was coming off a Honda Classic win but stamped out a pedestrian 70 and missed a 20-footer at the last to force a playoff.

Singh, a then unknown who the previous year made 15 starts in his first "full" TOUR season, led Saturday night but three-putted the 71st and missed both fairway and green at the 72nd for another bogey.

Zoeller made a late charge but conked a spectator in the head with his tee shot at the par-3 71st only to watch the ball carom into the lake.

Even Tom Watson, seven years removed from his triumph in the inaugural playing of a 30-man season-ender, now known as THE TOUR Championship, struggled early in the day and shot 73 with a balky putter.

The 38-year-old Roberts, though, was undaunted.

After opening 70-70-68, he birdied three of the first four holes, two thanks to long-iron approach shots, then added more at the ninth and 13th. He then strung five pars coming home, including the water-protected 18th when he hit a 237-yard approach from the rough to 50 feet and two-putted.

"I had been there probably a half-dozen times at the end with at least a chance to win and hadn't done it," Roberts recalled. "Anybody's going to question themselves after a while. 'Do you have enough guts?'"

More than enough, in fact. He tied for fifth in the Masters and ninth at the PGA Championship around a 20-hole playoff loss to Ernie Els in the U.S. Open at Oakmont CC (the 2007 Open site, coincidentally). What stung was missing a five-footer at the last hole of regulation that would have won outright.

"I'm still out here to prove myself," Roberts conceded the next March, when The Boss of the Moss came back to Bay Hill to show who was boss.

Roberts never strayed into a water hazard (Greg Norman drowned seven balls and finished seven back) and stayed cool when the water kept falling out of the sky (rain halted play both Friday and Saturday afternoons).

This time Roberts took control with a morning 65 in the second round, leading by two over Davis Love III at the midpoint. He kept a similar cushion over Faxon with a third-round 68 that finished Sunday morning. And he played so solidly in Sunday afternoon's fourth round that he could close bogey-bogey and easily hold Faxon at bay.

This was no fluke. The field included the top 23 players in the world and all but one of the last 18 British Open champs.

"For some reason, I get here and my attitude changes," Roberts said of Bay Hill. "I can visualize the shots off the tee. It's framed out for you."

Funny how clear that picture seems after so many years without a single paintbrush to your name.