Monday, Aug. 1, 2005 | 9:26 a.m.
SUN WIRE SERVICES
It was the U.S. Senior Open nobody wanted to win.
Or so it seemed.
When Craig Stadler, Loren Roberts and D.A. Weibring each fumbled the lead at NCR Country Club, Allen Doyle was able to snatch the $470,000 first prize with the 10-under-par 274 score he posted an hour before finish in Kettering, Ohio.
Doyle, who was nine strokes behind when the day began, fired a course record, 8-under 63 to pass 15 players in what was the biggest comeback over the last 18 holes in the 26-year history of this 72-hole event.
The late-blooming 57-year-old, with an unorthodox swing that was concocted in his basement, solved the NCR South course that baffled almost everyone when it got hard and fast Sunday afternoon.
"I always thought I was a USGA champion," said Doyle, who represented the United States on two Walker Cup teams and two World Amateur teams. "Now I have a trophy to prove it."
Doyle, who played a bogey-free round, made six birdies on the front nine to go out in 30 and equal the lowest nine-hole score in Senior Open history. By comparison, he had a quiet back nine, birdieing the 10th and 14th holes.
It is the third major senior championship for Doyle, who grew up in Massachusetts but has spent much of his life in LaGrange, Ga. He won the 1999 Senior PGA Championship by shooting 64 in the final round and the 2001 Ford Senior Players Championship.
Few people in the crowd of about 25,000 at NCR thought much about Doyle when the day began. Many expected co-leaders Stadler and Roberts to duel for the title, and they did for a while. Stadler surged to a three-stroke lead but fell apart after double-bogeying the ninth out of a greenside bunker. He shot 76 to finish in a tie for seventh.
Roberts, his playing partner, took the lead after 10 holes when Stadler three-putted, but lost the tournament when he double-bogeyed the 11th after making a beautiful drive to the center of the fairway. Inexplicably, he dumped a wedge far short and into a bunker, left the next shot in the bunker, blasted past the hole and two-putted. That put the lead in the hands of Weibring.
"Basically, the 11th hole was my whole tournament," Roberts said. "I think I had 82 (yards) to carry (the bunker) and 92 to the hole, or something like that, and I probably put the worst swing on it that I've ever put on a wedge. I just went blank or something."
Weibring was cruising along at 3 under par for the day with a bogey-free round and was in the lead at 11 under when he bogeyed the 17th and 18th holes. On the 17th, one of the shortest and easiest holes on the course, Weibring's drive bounced into the left rough. His wedge fell into the grass collar of the front bunker, where a leaf wrapped around his ball. He didn't get up and down for par.
Weibring needed a par on 18 to win, but his drive carried into a tree on the right side of the fairway and fell into matted rough. His 7-iron approach bounced on the green and rolled over it.
He pitched the ball below the hole but missed the putt.
"It isn't a great feeling to finish bogey-bogey when you have a chance to win the U.S. Senior Open," he added, "but I've got to look at how I played all week."
Roberts, who would tie Weibring for second, was 9 under after 13 holes and needed a birdie coming home to catch Doyle. All he could do was par in, and Doyle became the second-oldest winner of the Senior Open.
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