56-year-old Peter Senior wins third Aussie Masters; DeChambeau second
Peter Senior won his third Australian Masters title on Sunday in Melbourne, 20 years after taking his second gold jacket.
With an 8-foot par putt on the final hole at Huntingdale Golf Club, the 56-year-old Aussie finished off a 3-under 68 that gave him a two-shot win over U.S. Amateur champion Bryson DeChambeau, John Senden and Andrew Evans.
”I’m getting a bit long in the tooth, but it’s still amazing,” said Senior. “It still hasn’t sunk in yet. You don’t expect to win these events anymore.”
Senior’s 8-under 276 total was four better than 18- and 36-hole leader Adam Scott, whose Saturday 77 cost him the title.
“I think I played okay. It’s kind of hard to know after yesterday’s 77 left my head spinning a little bit because I just played so poorly,” said Scott, the 2012 and ’13 champion of this event, on Sunday. “(That was) some of the worst golf I’ve played this year and really disappointing. So, it was a big ask to be able to go low today.”
It was heartbreak for the second year in a row for Scott, who came up a shot shy against Nick Cullen last year.
After Senior got up-and-down from a bunker at the 18th, he had to wait for Evans to reach the finish, which he stumbled across with a pair of bogeys.
Senior is the oldest winner of the Aussie Masters — one of the country’s Triple Crown events, including the Aussie PGA Championship and Aussie Open — by six years, passing Gene Littler’s 1980 win.
The champion said the home crowd helped carry him to a record-setting win.
”Nearly every hole on the back nine, everyone was cheering me, even my poor shots,” he said. “It was just great. I have not had that sort of following for a very, very long time. It sort of encouraged me.”
Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.
