Fifteen years after his third victory in the Georgia PGA Championship, James Mason added a fourth title, winning the rain-drenched event in early September at Sea Island Golf Club’s Plantation course.
Mason finished the rain-shortened, 36-hole tournament at 6-under 138, two shots in front of former champion Tim Weinhart. Tommy Brannen, also a former champion, was third at 141, with Kyle Owen fourth at 142.
The 64-year-old Mason played the Champions Tour for more than a decade after winning a tournament in New Jersey as a Monday qualifier in 2002, but has played only a handful of tour events in recent years. He is playing primarily in Georgia PGA events, winning the Georgia Senior Open earlier this year and turning in top-10 finishes in two Section events before his victory in the Section Championship, which is sponsored by E-Z-GO and presented by Taylor-Made/adidas Golf/Ashworth/Adams and the PGA Tour.
Mason became the second Georgia PGA member in four years to win the Section Championship for a fourth time, 15 years after his third title in the event. Mariette Country Club Director of Golf Stephen Keppler accomplished that feat in 2011 and tied for fifth this year, the first time he has been outside the top three since 2004.
Before he turned 50 in 2001 and made it to the Champions Tour the next year, Mason won the Georgia PGA Championship three times in a four-year stretch from 1997-2000, and did not compete again in the event until 2012. He tied for second last year, a distant 10 shots behind Frederica head pro Hank Smith.
“It feels great,” Mason said of his victory. “It solidifies that I can still compete. We play golf courses that are pretty long and tough, and I’m ecstatic I’m still able to play with ‘em. It gives me a reason to get up and still practice.”
Although many of the Section’s top players like Keppler, Brannen, Sonny Skinner and Craig Stevens are also seniors, Mason is the oldest of the group. While he remains one of the Section’s top players – he’s second behind Weinhart in the Player of the Year standings – Mason can see the effects of aging in his game.
“At Berkeley Hills, I played with a guy who was out-driving me by 90 yards,” Mason offered. The winner of the Section Championship is ordinarily offered a spot in the PGA Professional National Championship, but as a non-active Life Member, Mason is not eligible for an exemption to nationals.
That’s OK with Mason, who says the courses they play at the PNC “are 7200 and 7300 yards and that’s a little long for me. I can still play 7000-yard courses and I look forward to playing in the Senior PNC. But it’s getting harder for me to compete.”
Mason tied for second in last year’s Senior PNC in south Florida to earn a spot in the 2015 Senior PGA Championship, and will make a return to the senior major next year after a strong showing in the PGA Senior PNC recently in California.
With an exemption into the finals of Champions Tour qualifying, Mason is considering making a trip to Arizona to play at TPC Scottsdale, but won’t decide until shortly before the tournament.
This was the second time since 2009 that the Section Championship was reduced to 36 holes by the weather, but unlike 2009, the tournament was completed on schedule. The 2009 tournament was not completed until December, some three months after it began.
With bad weather in the forecast, Georgia PGA officials hoped to get in 36 holes the first day and complete the tournament the next day. But the first round was delayed four hours and the scheduled second round was washed out. What turned out to be the final round was halted by lightning, and play was completed just minutes before heavy rains hit the waterlogged course.
“Sea Island did a tremendous job of getting the course in shape,” Mason said, noting that the area had three or four inches of rain the previous day. “They did a hell of a job to get in 36 holes.”
Mason, who lives at Sky Valley and teaches and plays out of the Orchard, shot a bogey-free 68 the first day with birdies on his first (18) and last (17) holes in the shotgun start. He hit 16 greens in regulation to lead Dunwoody CC head pro Kyle Owen by a shot, with Ocean Forest assistant Michael Ferguson next at 70, and Weinhart, Skinner and Cartersville CC head pro Bill Hassell the only other players under par at 71.
With four birdies on his first six holes in the final round, Mason built a comfortable lead, making three in a row at holes 4, 5 and 6 shortly before the lightning delay. Mason was coasting after play resumed until hitting his second shot on the par-4 12th over the green and into the water for a double bogey, and had to scramble for bogey on the 13th.
No one was able to make a serious run at Mason, who settled down with four pars and a birdie at the 18th for a 70 and a 2-stroke victory at 138. Weinhart, an instructor at the Standard Club, birdied five of his last 10 holes for a 69 after a double bogey on the par-3 seventh. Brannen, the head pro at Augusta Country Club, overcame a triple bogey at the fifth with seven birdies and shot 69 to finish third.
Like Weinhart, Owen made double bogey on the seventh and shot 73 to take fourth. Ferguson tied Keppler for fifth at 143, shooting 73 after a slow start and fast finish, highlighted by an eagle at the par-5 18th. Tying for seventh at 144 was Eric Reeves of Capital City Club and Brookstone CC instructor Stevens.