AT&T Champions Classic: Final-Round Notebook

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VALENCIA, Calif. -- With his victory on Sunday, Denis Watson claims his third Champions Tour title in his 35th start on Tour. It was also his second straight win in a playoff. He won a record seven-man playoff last year at the Boeing Classic near Seattle. His other win came at the 2007 Senior PGA Championship.

• Watson's closing-round 7-under-par 65 was the low round of the tournament and it was three strokes better than the next lowest score on Sunday by Tom McKnight (4-under-par 68).

• Watson earned 240 points in the season-long Charles Schwab Cup race and moves into eighth place in the standings with 281 points. Scott Hoch, who withdrew prior to the start of the event with a bad back, leads that race with 488 points, but Bernhard Langer narrowed the gap to just 12 points with his tie for fifth. Rounding out the top five are Brad Bryant (427), Jay Haas (423) and Jerry Pate (347).

• Watson made up seven strokes in the final round, the largest come-from-behind win on the Champions Tour since Jay Sigel came from a record 10 strokes down against Jim Colbert at the 1994 GTE West Classic. Watson's effort surpassed the previous best in this event, six strokes by Des Smyth in 2005.

• Brad Bryant's tie for second was his third in succession in 2008 and it marked the second time in a row he had lost in a playoff. He was one of three players who fell to Scott Hoch at the ACE Group Classic (Tom Kite and Tom Jenkins the others).

• This marked the second consecutive year the winner emerged in a playoff and the fifth time overall. Last year Tom Purtzer defeated Loren Roberts on the fourth playoff hole.

• With his win, Watson became the fifth player in six Champions Tour events to come from behind in the final round. The lone exception came at the Toshiba Classic, when second-round leader Bernhard Langer prevailed in a playoff with Jay Haas.

• Loren Roberts now has 18 consecutive rounds par/better, the longest current streak on the Champions Tour after a 2-under-par 70 on Sunday.

• Jay Haas posted his 12th consecutive sub-par round when he shot a 1-under-par 71. That is the best streak on the Champions Tour in 2008.

• Defending champion Tom Purtzer finished 10th following a closing-round 1-over-par 73.

• Bernhard Langer finished two strokes short of a spot in the playoff and tied for fifth. It was his fourth top-10 finish in five outings this year.

• Jay Haas earned his fourth top-10 finish in four starts in 2008 when he was fourth.