Bernhard Langer extends Schwab Cup lead with PURE Championship win

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that to win at Pebble Beach one must make a move in the first seven holes, then hang on for dear life for the rest of the round (my apologies to Jane Austen.)  Jerry Kelly, the goateed Everyman of the senior circuit, came out of the blocks in just that fashion in the final round of the 2017 PURE Insurance Championship, opening his round birdie-birdie, and adding an eagle three on the par five 6th hole to pull into a tie with Saturday’s leader, Bernhard Langer, at the turn.

Tour points leader Langer, who started the day at 12-under and leading by one over Kenny Perry, found himself locked into a head-to-head struggle with Kelly, while Saturday’s pursuer, Perry, faded out of contention.

Annika Borrelli, 17, of Alamo, California, holds her finish after her second shot on hole #18 in the third round of the 2017 PURE Insurance Championship at Pebble Beach Golf Links. Paired with six-time major winner Sir Nick Faldo, and representing The First Tee of the Tri-Valley, Borrelli, a senior at Carondelet High School in Concord, finished fifth in the pro/junior competition at the tournament. (Photo by author)

The rest of the field were playing for third as Langer and Kelly separated themselves from the pack over the opening nine, putting a three-to-four-stroke gap between themselves and the 51 players behind them.

Playing one group ahead of Langer, Kelly, who started the round three strokes out of the lead, made up the gap with his fast start, but Langer clung to his lead through the front nine despite a choppy run that saw two of his three birdies negated by a pair of bogeys.

Kelly’s play went a little flat after the turn, with pars and a lone birdie through fourteen, while Langer appeared to hit his stride (and put the lie to the aphorism I hauled out in the first paragraph) by putting up three more birdies, including back-to-back birdies at 13 and 14, to go two-up on Kelly with four holes left to play.

A lawn dart approach to two feet at #15 made Langer’s birdie run a triple, further opening the gap between himself and Kelly, who was playing solid golf but couldn’t buy a birdie putt.

Knowing that Kelly was hot on his heels through the turn, Langer said, “…it made me keep the pedal down and keep trying to make birdies and not just protect par, because that might not have been good enough.”

Langer coasted to victory with routine pars at 16, 17, and the spectacularly beautiful—but difficult—par-five 18th hole, to notch his thirty-fourth Champions Tour win with rounds of 64-67-67–198. The three-shot win is Langer’s fifth of the year, and his all-time best finish at Pebble Beach Golf Links.

Langer last played Pebble Beach in 2001, for the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, where he missed the cut. Previous to that, he played the Bing Crosby/AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am for a six-year stretch from 1985 to 1990, missing the cut in 1990, with best finishes of T3 and T4 in 1987 and 1988.

Despite falling short of the win, Jerry Kelly established a Champions Tour record this week. His rounds of 68, 66, and 67 put him at 14 consecutive rounds in the 60s, breaking the record of 13 set by Hale Irwin in 1999—and almost certainly locking up the PGA Tour Champions Rookie of the Year award (not an oxymoron…) for the 50-year-old from Madison, Wisconsin.

In junior results, two Junior Tour of Northern California players—Annika Borrelli of Alamo, representing The First Tee of the Tri-Valley; and Katie Harris, representing The First Tee of Greater Sacramento, finished 5th and T-6, respectively.

Borrelli, a 17-year-old senior at Carondelet High School in Concord, was paired with six-time major winner and World Golf Hall of Fame member Sir Nick Faldo. Asked about that experience she said, “It was awesome to be in the presence of a legend. When I was first paired with him I was in shock. My dad had always talked about him or I had watched him on TV, so to see his swing in person and right next to him—it was an incredible experience.”

Playing with pro tournament winner Bernhard Langer, Justin Potwora, representing The First Tee of Greater Portland, carded rounds of (net) 62, 67, and 65 to claim the Junior tournament victory.

The Langer/Potwora win marks only the third time in the tournament’s 13-year history that the pro winner was part of the winning pro/junior team; previous pro/pro-junior doubles were recorded by Craig Stadler in 2004, and Kirk Triplett, in 2014.