Sheehan tops money leader Sim in Athens playoff
April 20, 2009
Patrick Sheehan birdied the first hole of a sudden-death playoff Sunday to defeat Michael Sim at the Athens Regional Foundation Classic. The $99,000 paycheck is the first of the season for Sheehan on the Nationwide Tour and puts him in seventh place on the current money list. The top 25 players at the end of the year earn PGA TOUR cards for 2010.
As the day unfolded, the eventual win for the Providence, R.I., native was anything but certain. Sheehan started the day at 10 under and two strokes behind third-round leader Bob Burns. Playing seven groups and an hour and twenty minutes behind Sim, he kept his eye on the scoreboards as the 24-year-old Australian rocketed toward him.
"I saw him at 14 under and kept wondering what he could have shot," said Sheehan.
Sim started the day tied for 19th and seven shots off the lead. Seven birdies and an eagle later, he was in the clubhouse with a course-record-tying 63 and a sole possession of the lead at 14 under par.
Sheehan got to 13 under through 11 holes when Sim finished, then birdied the 12th take a share of the lead. He then bogeyed the 13th and missed a five-footer for par on the 15th to fall two shots back, and thought the round and chances for his first win in almost seven years might be slipping away.
"After I missed the putt on 15, I told Billy (his caddie) that my only shot was to make two birdies coming in and force a playoff," he said.
He did just that, making an unlikely 3 on the par-4 16th, the second-toughest hole on the course, where only seven other birdies were made all day. After a par on the 17th, Sheehan hit a perfect approach to 8 feet on the final hole of regulation.
"I couldn't see it but heard the roar and knew there was going to be a playoff," said Sim, who was less than 100 yards away on the practice tee when Sheehan's birdie putt curled in the left side of the cup.
They returned to the par-5 18th hole, where Sim was first to hit and laced a 2-iron down the middle of the fairway. Sheehan pushed his drive wide right, where it bounced off a cart path and into wet rough.
"The lie was decent but my stance was in a puddle of water. The rules official said I was entitled to take relief, but where I would have had to drop was in a worse spot so I decided just to play it," said Sheehan. "I also couldn't hit too much club because there was a mound in front of me." Sim laid up perfectly to 75 yards with an ideal angle to the pin while Sheehan was still 140 yards out with a difficult approach over the water and a greenside bunker. It clearly looked like Sim was in position to become the first player to win consecutive events on the Nationwide Tour since 2002.
Sheehan's approach with a 9-iron drifted right and ended up just a few inches off the green, 22 feet from the hole.
Sim played a low spinning sand wedge that looked like it would hit the slight ridge in the middle of the green and release to the back left pin. But the ball landed softly, stopping some 40 feet from the hole.
"I thought that shot was perfect," said Sim. "It hit an old pitch mark and didn't release." After Sim rolled his putt two feet past the hole, Sheehan stepped up and coolly drained the 22-footer from the fringe for birdie and the victory.
This is Sheehan's second career win as a professional and his first time competing in a playoff. He has played five full seasons on the PGA TOUR since 2003 with more than $3.8 million in earnings. He finished 128th on last year's PGA TOUR money list and came to Athens after not getting into the field at the Verizon Heritage. This win guarantees fully-exempt status on the Nationwide Tour for the remainder of this year and all of 2010.
Sim continued his stellar play with another top-5 finish, his third in six starts this year. He maintains his top position on the current money list with cumulative earnings of $241,417. The 25th position in 2008 was $218,902.
Final-Round Notebook: Players with regional ties included Blake Adams of Eatonton, Ga., (tied for 11th) and University of Georgia alumni Kevin Kisner (tied for 15th) and Brendon Todd (tied for 50th). ... Tournament officials pushed up tee times and sent players off in threesomes on the first and 10th tees due to a threat of rain on Sunday afternoon. Play concluded at approximately 2:45 p.m. ... All four competitive rounds were played with preferred lies, allowing players to lift, clean and replace their ball in closely-mown areas through the green (areas cut to fairway height or less). ... Sunday was mostly cloudy in the morning with scattered showers. High temperatures were in the low 70s. Winds were out of the south at 7 to 15 mph.
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Founded (1990), owned and operated by the PGA TOUR, the Nationwide Tour identifies those players who are ready to compete and win on golf's greatest stage. As the official proving ground of the PGA TOUR, two out of three current PGA TOUR members played on the Nationwide Tour. Through 2008, Tour alumni had won 237 PGA TOUR titles, including 11 majors and three PLAYERS Championships. Twenty-five PGA TOUR cards and a record purse of $19 million will be at stake over the course of 29 events in 2009. Recognizing the Tour’s growing stature, Nationwide Insurance has renewed its umbrella sponsorship of the Nationwide Tour through 2012. The PGA TOUR, through the efforts of its three tours and their tournaments, sponsors, players and volunteers, supports over 2,000 local charities and has surpassed $1 billion in charitable giving. To learn more about the PGA TOUR and Nationwide Tour and to follow the season-long quest for a PGA TOUR card, www.PGATOUR.com.
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Contacts:
Mike Pilcher
Associate Director, Corporate Communications
Athens Regional Health Services
Tel: 706-475-3336
Email: mpilcher@armc.org
Bryan Harris
Jackson Spalding
Tel: 706-354-0470
Email: bharris@jacksonspalding.com
