Allenby Defeats Price in Playoff

Australia’s Robert Allenby continued his perfect record in playoffs by tapping in a two-foot par putt Sunday to beat Nick Price on the first extra hole and win the Western Open at Lemont, Ill.

Allenby won his first title by beating Craig Stadler on the fourth playoff hole at the Houston Open in April, and counting his years on the Australasian and European tours, he is six for six in playoffs.

“Playoffs must agree with me,” he said, laughing. “A win’s a win. I really don’t care how I get it.”

It was the second time a playoff has cost Price a Western Open title. Tom Kite won the 1986 tournament on the first extra hole of a playoff with Price, Fred Couples and David Frost.

“I’ve lost two playoffs in the Western Open, but when I look back, this tournament has been so good to me,” Price said.

Allenby and Price finished regulation at 14-under 274 and went back to the par-four 18th to begin the playoff. Price made things tough on himself right away, putting his tee shot into a bunker on the right side of the fairway.

“Out of the last, maybe, 13 holes, I hit three good tee shots,” he said. “After awhile, it starts working its way into your game a little bit.”

With a cluster of trees blocking his way to the hole, Price played it safe and punched out to the fairway. But with Allenby on the green in two, Price needed to put his next shot close to the pin. Instead, it hit the green and rolled off, finally stopping in the rough about 18 feet from the hole.

Allenby missed an 18-foot birdie putt but tapped in for par, forcing Price to hole his chip shot to force a second playoff hole. The two-time Western Open winner came within a few inches, but his ball rolled right on by to make Allenby the champion.

“To beat Nick Price in a playoff is awesome,” said Allenby, who won $540,000. “I was very fortunate, very lucky.”

Tiger Woods, playing his first tournament since his 15-stroke victory in the U.S. Open, never got his putter going and finished seven strokes back at seven-under 281, tied for 23rd. It was his worst finish since a tie for 37th in the Sprint International last August. Coincidentally, that finish came a week after he won the PGA Championship, his second major.

Woods hit spectator William Fick, 63, of Antioch, Ill., with his second shot on the par-five No. 5, opening a small gash on the right side of Fick’s face near the bridge of the nose. The shot hit a branch.

“They just said, ‘It’s coming.’ I tried ducking,” Fick said. “It felt like I broke it.”

Course marshals cleaned off the blood with wet towels and gave Fick ice packs. They offered to call paramedics, but Fick said he was fine.

Woods apologized to Fick, shook his hand before and after he putted and gave him his ball.

“He was real nice,” Fick said. “Came over and said he was sorry.”

Said Fick’s wife, Priscilla: “It’s not his fault. We play golf. You expect things like this.”

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Leonard Thompson made a two-foot birdie putt on the second playoff hole to ruin a sensational comeback by Isao Aoki and win the State Farm Senior Classic at Columbia, Md.

Aoki made up three shots over the final four holes to force the playoff. But after his 15-foot birdie putt on the second playoff hole missed by an inch, Thompson sank an uphill putt for his second victory in four years on the Senior Tour.

His other victory, in the 1998 Coldwell Banker Burnet Classic, was also in a playoff with Aoki.

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Annika Sorenstam let a four-shot lead slip away in the rain and Rachel Hetherington caught her with birdies on the last two holes of regulation at the Jamie Farr Kroger Classic at Sylvania, Ohio. But Sorenstam made an 11-foot birdie putt on the second playoff hole to record her fourth LPGA victory of the year and 22nd of her career.

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Catherine Cartwright, a 17-year-old high school senior from Bonita Springs, Fla., became the youngest champion of the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links, rallying over the final five holes to defeat Russamee Gulyanamitta, 24, of Costa Mesa, 3 and 1, at Aberdeen, N.C.