Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am: Final-round notebook
By Phil Stambaugh, PGA TOUR Staff
LUTZ, Fla. -- Despite making three double bogeys and a bogey in his first 11 holes, Nick Price also managed to record seven birdies, including three in a row (holes 13-15) coming home and defeated Larry Nelson by two strokes. Price's victory was the eighth in tournament history by a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame and the fourth by a World Golf Hall of Famer in the last five Outback Steakhouse Pro-Ams.
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• With his victory, Price wins his first Champions Tour event in his 39th career start and going back to his last victory on the PGA TOUR, the 2002 MasterCard Colonial, he ends a victory drought of 111 TOUR events. Price claimed his first PGA TOUR victory at the 1983 World Series of Golf in his 19th career start.
• Price joins Mike Goodes (Allianz Championship) and Dan Forsman (AT&T Champions Classic) as first-time winners this year and he becomes the sixth player to claim his first Champions Tour victory in Tampa, joining Mike Hill (1990), David Graham (1997), Bob Gilder (2001), Mark McNulty (2004) and Jerry Pate (2006).
• Price becomes the fourth international winner of the Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am, joining Bob Charles of New Zealand (1989, 1991), Graham of Australia (1997) and countryman McNulty of Zimbabwe (2004).
• Price becomes the first first-time international winner since Zimbabwe's Denis Watson picked up his initial Champions Tour title at the 2007 Senior PGA Championship.
• Price's victory also earns him a two-year exemption into the season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai.
• At 52 years, two months, 22 days, Price is the youngest winner of the Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am since McNulty claimed the 2004 event just three months, and 28 days after turning 50.
• Price's win is the 43rd title of his career. He won 18 times on the PGA TOUR and claimed 24 other official events around the world.
• Price wins his first event in the state of Florida since the 1994 Honda Classic in Fort Lauderdale. Price also claimed the 1993 PLAYERS Championship in Ponte Vedra.
• Price picked up 255 Charles Schwab Cup points and is now tied for eighth in the season-long competition after seven official events. Bernhard Langer continues to lead the Schwab Cup race with 697 points and Andy Bean is second with 414 points. Loren Roberts tied for third this week earned him 102 points and he now stands third in the race with 407 total points. At the end of the year, the player with the most Schwab Cup points will earn a $1 million payout.
• Price made $255,000 this week and increased his 2009 official earnings to $382,352 (sixth).
• Price became the first player to win with an even-par final round since Roberts did so at the 2006 Turtle Bay Championship. He also is the first player since R.W. Eaks last year at the Greater Hickory Classic at Rock Barn to win after posting a higher score each day.
• Nelson's runner-up finish Sunday was his best performance on the Champions Tour since winning the 2004 Administaff Small Business Classic near Houston. Nelson, a winner in Tampa in 1999, had his finest performance at this event since finishing second to McNulty in 2004.
• Hal Sutton's rounds of 64-69 on the weekend allowed him to finish tied for third, his best performance in seven career starts on the Champions Tour and his top outing in a TOUR event since finishing third at the 2003 MCI Heritage Classic.
• The 63-year-old Mike McCullough had his first top-10 effort since 2006 when he finished tied for seventh this week in Tampa. It was McCullough's best performance in Tampa since he tied for fourth in 2003.
• If not for his first nine holes, Mark O'Meara may have won his first Champions Tour title instead of Price. O'Meara started at the 10th tee on Friday and shot 4-over 40 on his first nine. He then played his remaining 45 holes at the TPC Tampa Bay in 7 under par. His 3-under cumulative total for the event was good enough for a tie for eighth, his third top-10 effort in five Champions Tour events this year. O'Meara only had two top-10s in the entire 2008 season.
• Despite posting a final-round 69, Langer fell short in his bid to extend a top-10 streak to seven straight events. Langer's tie for 13th this week was much better than his initial effort at the TPC Tampa Bay when he was tied for 34th last year, his second-lowest finish of the 2008 campaign.
• It was another good week for Argentina. On the heels of Angel Cabrera's victory at the Masters last week, Vicente Fernandez teamed with his amateur partner Mike Potthoff, a sales director for Anheuser-Busch, to win the pro-am portion of the Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am. The duo shot a team score of 25-under 188, one stroke better than Price and his amateur partner, former NFL quarterback Vinny Testaverde. For Testaverde, it was his second consecutive runner-up finish in the pro-am here. Fernandez and Potthoff received Outback comp cards for winning the competition.
• The field scoring average this year was 72.154 compared to 72.031 last year. A total of 20 players finished under par for the week compared to 25 last year.
• Ken Green withdrew before the start of his final round with a bad back.
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