Monday, April 29, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
One of the cool things about professional golf tournaments is that they bring the winner into the press tent after it's over, forcing the champion to offer some type of explanation for his success.
But Jim Colbert was as perplexed as anyone as he tried to sort through the circumstances that led to his victory Sunday in the Las Vegas Senior Classic.
"I was very, very fortunate," he said after a final-round 70 left him at 207 (63-74-70) and nine under par for the three-day event. "I don't know how it all happened."
It wasn't tricks or mirrors, but more a matter of luck and good timing. Colbert, two strokes behind tournament leader Bob Charles with one hole to play, worked himself into a playoff and emerged with the victory four holes later after Charles, then Dave Stockton, figuratively shot themselves in the foot.
The stunning closing-holes scenario allowed Colbert, a Las Vegas resident, to successfully defend his championship in the $1 million event and earn $150,000. It was his second Senior Tour victory of the year and the 15th of his career, plus it moved him to second on this year's money list with $442,194.
"Better pinch him to see if he's awake," Colbert's wife, Marcia, said after her husband attempted to make some sense of a roller-coaster afternoon at the TPC at Summerlin.
"I never had the feeling during the day that everything was going to work out all right for me," Colbert said. "But I got three huge breaks. If there's a lesson to be learned -- I don't know if we're in the lesson business -- it's that there's something to be said for sticking your nose in there and continue plugging."
Even with a birdie from 65 feet on the 54th hole, Colbert walked off the 18th green believing he would finish tied for second with Stockton. But Charles, playing behind him in the final group, had yet to self-destruct.
"I know Bob won't sleep too well tonight," Colbert said. "He just had a little lapse. That's uncharacteristic for him; he's been a great finisher. But he got fooled a little bit."
Charles crashed and burned by three-putting from 30 feet, with his first effort pitifully short.
"Bob Charles is one of the best putters to ever play the game," Colbert said. "When I saw what he had (to win) I just headed for the clubhouse and signed some autographs. Then Stockton called out to me to wait up and that Charles had left his first putt 10 feet short. 'You must be joking,' is what I said back to him, but I did stop and watch."
Charles then missed the 10-footer and the playoff was on.
"Bob wouldn't do that again in 99 tries," Colbert said.
He also wouldn't miss a four-footer in a playoff situation too many times out of a hundred, but when he misfired on the first playoff hole (at No. 18), he was out. He admitted later that he "gave the tournament away."
Left in a two-dog scrap for the championship bone, Colbert and Stockton went three more holes before the matter was resolved. They played 17, 18 again and 17 again before Stockton bogeyed, needing two swings with his 60-degree wedge to extricate himself from a greenside bunker. Prior to that, he had narrowly missed two putts -- especially one the first time he played 18 -- that would have given him the win.
"Obviously it was frustrating because I had a chance to win and didn't win," Stockton said of sharing second place with Charles and earning $69,000 less than Colbert. After starting the day four strokes behind second-round leaders Charles and Tommy Aaron, Stockton moved into contention with a front-side 32 that included consecutive birdies at Nos. 7, 8 and 9. "I knew I was right in it then," he said, but his failure to birdie another hole led to his eventual also-ran status.
(Aaron wasn't a factor after three back-nine bogeys, while other contenders like Hale Irwin and Ray Floyd failed to mount a serious charge.)
Amid all this stuttering from the star-packed field, Colbert was plugging away. He made the turn in 33 to temporarily tie Charles and Aaron for the lead, although he bogeyed Nos. 10 and 14 to drop to eight under, two behind Charles. A birdie at the 16th, a bogey at the 17th and the improbable birdie at the 18th completed his round of 70.
The "three huge breaks" Colbert referred to all came at 18, with Colbert snaking in his lengthy putt, Stockton leaving one on the lip from 12 feet and then Charles succumbing to the pressure on what should have been an easy lag and tap-in for the victory.
Maybe that's why the 55-year-old Colbert was noticeably gracious when it came time to take his bows. He said he felt before the round he needed 68 on the windy day to win, yet somehow 70 proved to be sufficient.
"When I was out there and things didn't seem to be going well, I kept telling myself, 'Good things happen to me, Good things happen to me,'" he said. If it was reassurance he was looking for, he got it when his winding 65-footer on 18 dropped in for what he called "my longest putt in two years."
Four drama-filled playoff holes later, he had a four-footer for par to close it out and he wasn't about to let it slip away.
So he willed it in, joining Chi Chi Rodriguez as a two-time winner of the annual Senior Tour stop in Las Vegas.
"I had to make it," Colbert said of the game-winner. "I couldn't give Stockton -- who's the best putter I ever saw -- another shot at me."
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