Round 3 Notebook: Boeing Classic

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Mark Calcavecchia two-putted for birdie on the first extra playoff hole to best Russ Cochran for his first victory on the Champions Tour. Calcavecchia appeared to be in the driver's seat on the final hole of regulation after two-putting for birdie from 25 feet. However, Cochran forced overtime by holing a 12-foot eagle putt after knocking his second shot on the green on the par-5 with a hybrid club from 235 yards. Both players were locked in a duel on the back nine and Calcavecchia broke the deadlock by chipping in for birdie at No. 16. After Cochran appeared to answer back by rifling a 6-iron shot to within a foot of the hole at the 211-yard par-3 17th hole, Calcavecchia answered him by holing an 18-foot birdie putt from the collar of the green to maintain a one-stroke advantage. Both players matched Jim Rutledge's 65 posted earlier in the day as the low round of the tournament. Earlier this year, Cochran outdueled Calcavecchia at the Senior British Open at Walton Heath near London.

Related

Results, points
Final leaderboard
Round 3 Recap
Card: Calcavecchia
Card: Cochran
Schwab Cup standings

Playoff Information:

• Playoff between Russ Cochran and Mark Calcavecchia was the seventh on the Champions Tour this year and the second consecutive. Last week at the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship, Fred Couples outlasted John Cook with birdie three on the third extra hole.

• Playoff was the third in the seven-year history of the Boeing Classic. In 2006, Tom Kite beat Keith Fergus in overtime and in 2007, Denis Watson won a seven-man playoff, the most players ever in overtime in a Champions Tour event.

• Today was both Russ Cochran's and Mark Calcavecchia's first playoffs as members of the Champions Tour. Cochran was 0-1 in playoffs on the PGA TOUR. Calcavecchia was 1-4 in playoffs on the PGA TOUR, winning his 1989 British Open title at Royal Troon in the first aggregate overtime session in tournament history.

Winner Notes: Mark Calcavecchia, 70-67-65 -- 202 (-14)

• Calcavecchia claims his first Champions Tour title in his 31st career start on the circuit. Previous-best finishes were: 2nd at the 2011 Senior British Open, 2nd at the 2010 3M Championship.

• He becomes the 16th different winner this year and joins John Huston (Dick's Sporting Goods Open) and Olin Browne (U.S. Senior Open) as the third first-time winner on the Champions Tour in 2011.

• He ends a TOUR victory drought of 4 years, 5 months, 17 days (2007 PODS Championship).

• He becomes the first player in tournament history to make the Boeing Classic his initial victory on the Champions Tour and the third (David Eger/2005, Denis Watson/2007) professional to win in his first appearance in this event.

• He becomes the first player to win with birdie on the last four holes since Jim Thorpe claimed the 2007 Charles Schwab Cup Champioonship with four straight birdies.

• He claims his third TOUR title in the Pacific Northwest -- 1997 Greater Vancouver Open (Northview G & CC in Surrey, British Columbia), 2005 Bell Canadian Open (Shaughnessey G & CC in Vancouver).

• He earns 300 Charles Schwab Cup points and moves into second place in the season-long Schwab race with 1,578 total points on the season.

• He earns a check for $300,000 and goes over the $1 million mark in single-season earnings for the first time in his Champions Tour career ($1,294,141). His last seven-figure season on the PGA TOUR was in 2007 ($2,993,332).

• He earns a two-year exemption into the season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai on the Big Island of Hawaii.

• He finished T15 in his first appearance in the Boeing Classic last year.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• For the first time in the last five years, the winner of this event did not post three straight rounds in the 60s. In 2006, Tom Kite shot 71 in the first round and eventually won in a playoff.

• Tom Lehman continues to lead the Charles Schwab Cup race after 19 events with 1,985 points. Mark Calcavecchia's victory today jumped him up into second place with 1,578 points. Peter Senior remains in third place with 1,410 points. At the end of the official season, the player earning the most Charles Schwab Cup points will

• The winner of the Boeing Classic has now come from the final grouping in each of the last four years.

• The hardest hole at TPC Snoqualmie Ridge this year was the par-3 9th hole (3.338), yielding just 17 birdies and a hole-in-one by Hale Irwin in the first round.

• This year's overall scoring average (72.911) was the highest in the history of the Boeing Classic. The previous high stroke average for the field at this event was 72.485 last year.

• Chip Beck, who recorded his first top-10 finish in a major on the Champions Tour last week, a T6 at the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship, birdied four of the last five holes to finish third at the Boeing Classic, Beck was T3 earlier this year at the Greater Hickory Classic at Rock Barn. This is the first time since 2006, his first year on the Champions Tour, that Beck has recorded back-to-back top-10 finishes in a season.

• D.A. Weibring was 10th this week in the Boeing Classic, posting his first top-10 finish since finishing T4 last year in Korea at the Posco E&C Sondgo Championship last season.

• Jim Rutledge from nearby Victoria, Canada, was the first to post 7-under 65 today. Rutledge's round moved him up 49 spots into a T16. Rutledge made five consecutive birdies during his round, one short of Allen Doyle's record of six straight in Round 1 of 2006.

• Gary Hallberg, T63 after an opening-round 76, rallied with scores of 66-69 on the weekend to finish solo eighth at the Boeing Classic this week, Hallberg's performance assured him a spot in the SAS Championship at the end of September. The highest non-exempt player to finish among the top-10 earns a place in the next full-field event.

• Here's how the former winners of the Boeing Classic did this week at TPC Snoqualmie Ridge -- David Eger (2005)/T23, Tom Kite (2006/2008)/T43, Loren Roberts (2009)/T43, Bernhard Langer (2010)/T11

• Don Pooley withdrew before his Sunday round with a bad back. Craig Stadler withdrew after playing five holes today with a lower back problem. Jerry Pate was disqualified for failing to show for his final-round tee time.