There is winning a golf tournament and then there is WINNING A GOLF TOURNAMENT.
James Mason won the recent Yamaha Georgia Senior Open in the all caps manner, finishing the tournament with a three-hole stretch that may never have been achieved in the history of the University of Georgia course, followed by a dramatic birdie on the first hole of a playoff for the victory.
Mason, who first won the Georgia Senior Open in 2001 and has been a member of the Champions Tour since 2002, seemingly shot himself out of contention when he made double bogey on the par-3 16th to fall three shots off the lead with only two holes to play.
But Mason responded by chipping in for eagle on the par-5 17th and closing with a birdie on the difficult par-4 18th to get into a playoff at 3-under 139 with Mark Anderson and Stephen Keppler. The three players returned to the 18th for the playoff, and Mason quickly ended it with another superb approach shot that produced the winning birdie.
Mason felt he had let his chance for victory get away when he took a double bogey on 16 after his tee shot came up short in the pond guarding the green.
“That was a pukey shot,” Mason said of his short iron tee shot on the 16th. “I don’t know where that came from.”
When asked if he thought his chance for victory was gone after the double bogey, he replied “without a doubt.”
At the same time, Mason stayed true to the old adage that “you never give up. If I finish 3-3 I could get back in it.”
As unlikely a scenario as that was, it was still a possibility, and Mason went to the 17th tee with that thought.
“You’ve still got to perform and I did. I was over the green in two 17 and chipped in. It went in dead center. Then on 18, I hit it to three feet and did it again on the playoff hole. It’s a finish you dream of and I did it. It’s unfathomable.”
The win put a cap on what was a memorable first two days of the week for Mason. The previous day, it was announced that Mason will be part of the 2016 class for the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame.
“That was a surprise,” he said. “I’m very thankful. I never thought they would put me up with the people in the Hall of Fame. It’s a wonderful feeling to be recognized for what I accomplished.”
Mason is one of a relatively small number of career club professionals to enjoy a second career after the age of 50 on the Champions Tour. He won a tournament in New Jersey in 2002 after making it into the event in a Monday qualifier, and stayed on the tour for more than a decade.
The past few years, Mason has had very little status on the tour, and has made fewer and fewer tournament appearances, having to rely on Monday qualifiers. At the age of 64, Mason is finding it harder to shoot the kind of scores needed to get one of about five spots set aside each tournament for Monday qualifiers, but has at least one more Champions Tour event on his schedule.
Mason will play in the Senior PGA Championship in Indiana this month, qualifying for one of the tour’s two premier events by tying for second in last year’s PGA Senior Professional National Championship, the top event for the country’s senior club professionals.
“I’d like to keep playing out there, but I’m not going to chase it every week,” Mason said. He still plays in the occasional Monday qualifiers, but his best hopes of playing are in the Senior PGA and Senior U.S. Open, where the qualifying fields are not quite as strong as those prior to Champions Tour events.
Before turning 50 and joining the Champions Tour, Mason enjoyed a stretch of outstanding play in the Georgia PGA Section in his late 40s. He was Player of the Year three times in four years between 1997 and 2000, winning the Section Championship three times, the Atlanta Open and two other Georgia PGA events.
Mason’s likely unprecedented 5-3-3 finish at the highly regarded UGA layout, followed by his playoff birdie, provided some late drama in a final round that had very few fireworks until Mason’s late explosion.
Craig Stevens, who had won the tournament three of the last four years and was a close second the year he didn’t win, led after an opening round of 4-under 67. Amateur Mark Nickerson of Roswell was second at 68, followed at 69 by Sonny Skinner, the only player other than Stevens to win the Georgia Senior Open the last four years.
Glen Herrell of Doublegate in Albany and Marietta amateur Mel Mendenhall also shot 69, with Keppler, Amderson, Mason and Clark Spratlin tied to 70.
Stevens bogeyed the opening hole and Nickerson started his round double bogey-bogey. The lead stayed at 3-under the rest of the day for all but two brief moments.
Keppler, the Director of Golf at Marietta County Club, was the first player to catch Stevens after birdies at 2 and 4. Anderson, an instructor at Brunswick Country Club, pulled even with his second birdie of the day at the par-5 seventh, and Mason made it a four-way tie with birdies at 8 and 9.
A birdie at the 11th gave Keppler the lead at 4-under, but he quickly fell back into a tie when he missed a short par putt at the par-5 12th, his only mistake of the day. Anderson holed what he described as a “30-foot double breaker” on 14 to take the lead, but three-putted the 16th for bogey after leaving himself a slick downhill birdie attempt he could not stop.
Neither Anderson nor Keppler could birdie the 17th, but Mason made eagle and Stevens made birdie on the hole after both hit their second shots over the green. Mason said favorable wind conditions made both 17 and 18 play shorter than usual, and he took advantage. He needed only an 8-iron second shot into 18, which played 437 yards for the tournament.
Anderson and Keppler both had to work hard for pars on the 18th to get into the playoff, but Stevens bogeyed the hole to fall out of tie for first. A bogey at 16 dropped him out of a share of the lead, but he got it back with his birdie at 17.
Stevens, an instructor at Brookstone G&CC, missed the green on 18 after his tee shot went left into the tree outline. He had a difficult third shot from the bunker in between the adjoining ninth and 18th greens and left it well short, but almost holed his lengthy putt for par. He finished fourth at 140 after a final round 73.
Mason, Anderson and Keppler all shot 69 the final round, the only three players in the field under 70. Charlie King, the head pro at Griffin City Golf Course, shot 70 and was fifth at 141, followed by Skinner and Mystery Valley Director of Golf John Crumbley at 142. Crumbley matched par of 71 in both rounds as he enjoyed his best showing in a Georgia PGA event.
Spratlin, the Director of Golf at Currahee Club, and Herrell tied for eighth at 143 with Roswell’s Billy Mitchell, who closed with a 70 to take low amateur honors over Marietta’s Jeff Belk, who was next at 144. Alpharetta’s Bob Royak, who shot a first round 65 last year at the UGA course in the first round of the tournament, and Mendenhall tied for third among the amateurs at 145.
Nickerson shot 78, the same score as Royak in last year’s final round, to finish fourth among the amateurs at 146, beginning and ending his day with double bogeys.
Mason, who lives at Sky Valley and teaches at the Orchard, earned $2,200 for his victory. His Georgia Senior Open victory 14 years ago came at the Orchard in a playoff over Doublegate head pro Ed Everett, the state’s top senior club pro at the time.
“This is one of the better ones,” Mason said of his more recent victory in the event. “You dream of that kind of finish.”