TWO-TIME US OPEN WINNER Lee Janzen snatched the 2015 ACE Group Classic on the US Champions Tour for his first win in 16 years.
Janzen, the U.S. Open champion in 1993 and 1998, hadn’t won an individual tournament in 413 starts.
It didn’t look like he would change the record at the TwinEagles Golf Club in Florida on Sunday with fellow American Bart Bryant shooting a course record equalling 10 under 62 to overtake overnight leader Colin Montgomerie.
But the 50 year old Janzen birdied the last hole – the most difficult on the course – to force a playoff, which he won on the first extra hole.
After such a long wait between wins, Janzen was literally unable to compose himself to speak at his greenside TV interview but later revealed his “new” equanimous nature.
“I was like I have to make birdie here to get in a playoff, or I make a par and I don’t and I’ll just go back to the drawing board and work harder on my putting because I had some putts I could have made that would have made a difference,” Janzen said. “But there was a peace that to me it didn’t matter whether I won or not.”
When Bryant put his second shot into the water on the first playoff hole, Janzen calmly revised his strategy on his 164 yard approach shot.
“Once he hit his shot, I was, you know, thinking about hitting it to the pin, being aggressive, but once he hit his shot, I calculated where’s the best place to be to make a 4,” Janzen said.
The American golfer said he had moved on from his days of temper tantrums and club throwing.
“I work on my game in a certain way so I’m going to do the best I can on every shot and I don’t need to worry about what people think, whether I hit a good shot or a bad shot,” Janzen said. “I used to have a terrible temper and threw clubs and carried on.
“That was really the breakthrough was to realize I was only doing that because I was too worried about what other people thought about my golf game, so I felt like I had to get mad to show them that I was better than that, which was just ridiculous.”
Janzen (67) and Bryant (62) finished tied on 16-under with Esteban Toledo (66) third two strokes back. Montgomerie (72) was outright 5th on 12-under.
In his first Champions Tour start of the year Australia’s Peter Senior (74) was showing the rust, finishing 6-over.