Elkington Blows ‘Em Away

Golf

Few players have destroyed a field this good by as much as Steve Elkington did this week at the Players Championship at Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.

Elkington has won big tournaments before, including the 1995 PGA and the Players Championship in 1991. But this was a performance for the history books.

“I basically blew away the best field we’ve ever had,” Elkington said Sunday after closing with a 69 for a 16-under-par 272 and a tournament record seven-stroke victory over Scott Hoch.

“And I did it in good fashion,” he said after lapping the only field in history to have all of the top-50 players in the world. “I was in the lead the whole way.”

The Stadium Course on the TPC at Sawgrass, devilish wind and the best golfers in the world were simply no match for Elkington.

Placing iron shots in perfect spots and putting with a precision usually only dreamed of when rolling balls on a carpet at home, Elkington started the final round with a two-stroke lead over Hoch. He built it masterfully on a gusty day when the course played the most difficult it had all week.

When the last putt had fallen and long after the final wind-blown ball had found the water or buried in the tangled rough, Elkington had led the tournament from wire to wire to win $630,000.

Hoch, who finished with a 74, made a clutch birdie putt on No. 17 to finish alone at 279 and get $378,000 second-place money. Loren Roberts closed with a 69 to finish third at 280.

Seniors

David Graham waited until the final hole to pull off his most dramatic shot to win the $800,000 Southwestern Bell Dominion Seniors at San Antonio.

Graham dropped in a 16-foot eagle putt on the 18th, and when John Jacobs missed a birdie putt, Graham had his second victory this year.

The eagle gave Graham a 3-underpar 69 and a total of 10-under 206 for the tournament. That was one stroke better than Jacobs, who missed a 10-footer on No. 18 that would have forced a playoff.