Calgary (Golf Canada) – Surrey, B.C. native A Ram Choi joined Seul-Ki Park of Northbrook, Illinois and Allyssa Farrell of Edgerton, Wisconsin in firing 3-under 69 Tuesday at The Glencoe Golf and Country Club in Calgary to share the opening-round lead of the first stop on the 2015 Canadian Women’s Tour.

Choi, who recently finished her collegiate career at Portland State, carded four birdies and a single bogey in her opening-round. The 23-year old amateur wrapped a solid collegiate career at Portland State by winning the Big Sky Conference individual title for the second straight year and being named Big Sky Conference Player of the Year for the third straight year.

“My putting saved my life today, I made a lot of clutch putts,” said Choi. “This course, you need to know where to place yourself, how to play with the wind, where you can miss it and where you can’t.”

A member of The Vancouver Golf Club in Coquitlam, host of this year’s Canadian Pacific Women’s Open, Monday qualified into Canada’s National Women’s Open in 2012 when the event was last hosted at her home club. The opportunity to earn the champion’s exemption into this year’s event at The Vancouver Golf Club adds extra incentive to play well Wednesday.

“The exemption is big,” said Choi, who will likely turn pro later this summer. “It makes the field a lot better and gives us something else to play for.”

Park, a graduate of the University of Illinois, took advantage of favourable front-nine (Bridges Course) scoring conditions collecting four birdies and five pars before a dropping a stroke with single back-nine bogey on the Slopes Course.

“I love the golf course here—it’s definitely a placement course, and if you’re able to hit into the right spots you’re able to score,” said Park, who got in three practice rounds on the tournament course since arriving in Calgary on Friday. “My putter was really nice to me today and I hope to do the same tomorrow.”

Ferrell, who teed off in the final grouping off the tournament back nine (Slopes Course), carded six birdies and three bogies in her opening-round at Glencoe.

Park and Ferrell are among 42 international competitors in the 84-player field. Both acknowledge that the carrot in competing on the Canadian Women’s Tour is the direct pass to Stage Two of LPGA Tour Qualifying as well as an exemption into the 2015 Canadian Pacific Women’s Open.

“The exemption, that’s why all the girls are out here,” said Park, adding “These events are a great opportunity—if you play good, you get to second stage of Q-School plus an exemption into the [Canadian Pacific] Women’s Open.”

Jennifer Coleman of Rolling Hills Estates, California sits alone in fourth at 2-under 70 while Kirby Dreher of Fort St. John, B.C. holds a share of fifth position with four other golfers at 1-under 71.

The final round of the Canadian Women’s Tour Alberta stop gets underway at 8:00 am with the final threesome set to tee off at 10:10 am (MDT).

Click here for scoring.

OAKVILLE, Ont. – The PGA of Canada, in partnership with Golf Canada and the Coaching Association of Canada, are pleased to introduce the Community Golf Coach supported by CN Future Links program, a community stream context within the National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP) designed strictly for junior golf volunteers.

The initiative is backed by extensive research into Canada’s volunteer training curriculums for sport across the country. Industry experts implemented the program to address the gap between PGA of Canada professionals and available volunteer support from family and friends.

In most sports, trained volunteers are core leaders in youth sport development and play key roles in running successful junior programming. PGA of Canada’s Technical Director, Glenn Cundari, is excited for the roll-out of the new content and how it can support the efforts of PGA of Canada professionals in communities from coast to coast.

“There are ideal candidates for this program right across the country,” said Cundari. “The fact of the matter is that there just aren’t enough PGA of Canada professionals to successfully engage all the kids who want to play golf, so that’s where the Community Golf Coach comes in. Our plan is to provide these volunteers with proper training and let them facilitate that first step into a lifetime of golf.”

Community Golf Coaches fall into the Community Stream of NCCP, geared towards instruction of juniors in the early development stages of golf’s recently released Long-Term Player Development Guide (LTPD).

“Volunteer support at the junior level is more often than not linked with successful, engaging junior programs,” said Jeff Thompson, Golf Canada’s Chief Sport Officer. “Our goal for this program is to strengthen support for PGA of Canada professionals in maintaining the focus towards creating a fun, welcoming atmosphere for youth—a key principle in long-term player development.”

Coaches will participate in a two-day workshop before gaining trained status within the NCCP. Each workshop encompasses everything from safety to basic instruction, including both in-class and outdoor components. Once training is complete, Community Golf Coaches will be equipped with the skills to deliver the full CN Future Links suite of junior golf programs.

“Supporting our employees’ volunteer work is a keystone of CN’s community outreach initiatives and thus this Community Golf Coach program is fully aligned with our core values of civic engagement and volunteerism,” said Claude Mongeau, CN President and Chief Executive Officer.

Workshops are open to junior coordinators, teachers, parents and anyone golf enthusiasts with a passion for the sport. Registration cost is $300, which includes lunch both days.

Workshops

• Jun 6–7, Nova Scotia, Oakfield Country Club
• Jun 6–7, Alberta, Golf Canada Calgary Centre
• Jun 13–14, Newfoundland, Clovelly Golf Club
• Jul 5–6, Québec, Le Boise

Click here to register.

Last year alone, CN Future Links junior golf activities were conducted at 455 golf facilities with more than 7,000 juniors registered in the Learn to Play program. In addition, 160 golf facilities took part in the Junior Skills Challenge while more than 56,000 youngsters participated in more than 1,200 mobile golf clinics across the country. Since 1996, more than 1 million children have been introduced to golf through the CN Future Links program.

I’ll miss the usual phone call this year from the man I called the “godfather of Canadian golf.”

Many more knew him as “Mr. Canadian Open.”

The call I always counted on, well, since the mid-1980s when we first met, would come a week or two before the RBC Canadian Open whenever it was played at Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ont. It will return there July 20-26 for the 27^th time.

But the phone call won’t come this year.

“Goose,” the gravelly voice would say (more about that nickname shortly), “when are you going to be there? Where do you want to meet?”

That unmistakable, and now sorely missed, voice belonged to Richard H. Grimm, who passed away a year ago, on May 26, at the age of 91.

It is well documented that Glen Abbey would not exist without Dick Grimm. Here is a précis.

He, along with another great gentleman of the game, the late Bruce Forbes, had the vision of a permanent home for our Open. Forbes, a successful businessman from Brantford, Ont., had been president of the Royal Canadian Golf Association (now Golf Canada) in 1965 and became its executive director in 1970. Dick’s involvement with the Open began when he, as president of the host club, chaired the 1965 Open at Mississaugua Golf and Country Club. He went on to chair the event seven more times and joined the RCGA as director of professional tournaments from 1983 to 1992. I was fortunate to work with him there for a couple of years.

(There’s lots more on his Canadian Golf Hall of Fame resume, which you can read here. All that and more was recounted a year ago in various obituaries, the finest of which is by Lorne Rubenstein, who was very close to Dick. You can read it here. Do so, and you will understand why I called him the godfather of Canadian golf.)

In 1972, when Dick was chairing the Open at Cherry Hill near Fort Erie, Ont., he was approached by Rod McIsaac, principal of Great Northern Capital. “He told me he liked watching the tournament but it was his feeling that the gallery was not given a fair shake for viewing,” Dick told me when I was writing my book, The Great Golf Courses of Canada. “Immediately, I thought, ‘Here’s another gripe from a spectator.’ But then he threw me for a country mile by saying he had a piece of property in Oakville—and we [RCGA] were thinking of a permanent site for the Open.”

The deal was done and Dick and Bruce persuaded Jack Nicklaus to design Glen Abbey, his first solo design, and one that has stood the test of time as one of the best spectator courses in the world since it opened in 1976. And woe betide anyone who said differently if Mr. Canadian Open was within earshot.

Once, just once, early in our friendship, when I was editor of SCOREGolf, I made the mistake of criticizing something, I forget what, about the Open and/or Glen Abbey in print. The next time I saw Dick, he called me “Goose.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because the Canadian Open is the goose that lays the golden egg for golf in Canada and I never want you to forget that.”

So “Goose” I remained until the day he died. I counted it an honour that he had a nickname for me. I called him “Godfather.” I am not sure he was so honoured. But he smiled when I called him that.

Although age and illness had cruelly, inevitably, turned him into a shadow of the imposing physical presence he once was when he passed away a year ago, Dick Grimm will remain a giant, figuratively, in Canadian golf forever.

No one knows that better than Bill Paul. Bill, now Chief Championship Officer at Golf Canada, who first met Dick almost 40 years ago. Dick not only got Bill, then a high-school student, into golf, but inextricably involved him in the Canadian Open which has become his life’s work, not unlike his mentor. Even after Bill took over Dick’s responsibilities in 1993, the two, teacher and student, still met frequently to talk about our national championship.

“He was always generous with his time and his advice,” Bill recalls. “The Open was so close to his heart. Although we didn’t always agree, he really was a great man, and a great person, in so many ways. If I had a wish for one thing to end my career on, whenever that may be, it would be to return the Open to a permanent site. It’s funny how all that may circle back to the vision he had. In a way, it would be a tribute to him.”

I will miss my friend’s pre-Open phone call this year, and the golf we played when he was healthy, and the lunches we shared as his health declined (“Hey, Goose, how about a bowl of soup and a bun at Bayview?”), and so much more, until I die. It’s not often you get to spend time with a legend.

But I will go again to the Open at Glen Abbey this July to honour his memory. I’ll wander around just below the clubhouse, where you can see the 16^th green, the second green, the tee on the par-3 third, maybe the 17^th tee if you squint, and remember the man who made this all possible.

Dick Grimm went to his grave a year ago intent, as always, on giving everyone “a fair shake.”

For the most part, he succeeded admirably.

So please take a minute on May 26, and whenever the Open rolls into Glen Abbey, remember the man who made it—and so much more in Canadian golf—happen.

SURREY, England – Alexander Levy of France had rounds of 66-67 to earn one of 11 spots in the U.S. Open from the sectional qualifier Monday in England.

One day after Levy slipped out of the top 60 in the world ranking that would have made him exempt for the U.S. Open, the Frenchman made 14 birdies on the Old and New courses at Walton Heath to lead all qualifiers.

The U.S. Open is June 18-21 at Chambers Bay outside Seattle.

The other players earning spots in the 36-hole qualifier were: Shiv Kapur, John Parry, Alex Noren, Lucas Bjerregaard, Jason Palmer and Marcel Siem. Tjaart Van Der Walt of South Africa had two eagles and a birdie on his final six holes that put him into a five-man playoff for the final four places. He got in along with Garth Mulroy, Thomas Aiken and Marcus Fraser.

Three-time major champion Padraig Harrington made bogey on his final hole and missed the playoff by one shot. Also missing by one was Peter Uihlein, who won the U.S. Amateur in 2010 at Chambers Bay.

In the sectional qualifier in Japan, Liang Wenchong led five players who earned their way to the U.S. Open. Liang had rounds of 65-65 at Kinojo Golf Club. The four who qualified were Masahiro Kawamura, Baek Seuk Hyun, Kurt Barnes and Hiroyuki Fujita.

Since the first known set of rules, “Articles and Laws in Playing at Golf,” written in 1744 for a tournament at Leith Links, a lot has changed, but a few key principles are still part of this great game.  The language in these original 13 rules relate to order of play, outside interference, and the stroke and distance penalty for the loss of a ball; they still have some similar elements with today’s official rules.

To illustrate, here are a few of the original 13 rules, copied verbatim:

If you should lose your ball, by its being taken up, or any other way, you are to go back to the spot, where you struck last, and drop another ball, and allow your adversary a stroke for the misfortune.

If a ball be stopp’d by any person, Horse, Dog, or anything else, the ball so stop’d must be play’d where it lyes.

He whose ball lyes farthest from the hole is obliged to play first.

Aside from these similarities, the rules have transformed and evolved over the last few centuries, just like the equipment and the courses.  See below for some of the most dramatic rule changes.

Teeing ground

In the beginning, the player had to tee their ball within a club-length of the hole.  With all the attention on pace of play these days, imagine how slow the game would be if groups had to wait until the group ahead teed off on the next hole?  This one club-length stipulation soon turned into two and four club-lengths respectively, until it finally became a separate area away from the hole on the putting green in 1875.

Current wording in today’s Rules of Golf: The “teeing ground” is the starting place for the hole to be played.  It is a rectangular area two club lengths in depth, the front and the sides of which are defined by the outside limits of two tee-markers.  A ball is outside the teeing ground when all of it lies outside the teeing ground.

The course and putting green

For a long time, the term green meant the entire course.  Putting green wasn’t even contemplated in the rules until 1812, and not truly defined until 1815, which stated that it was the area within 15 yards of the hole.  The area around the hole was sometimes called hole green or table-land by many with reference to the area we now call a putting green.  This area wasn’t even specially prepared for putting and was not distinct from the rest of the course until a separate teeing ground came into use.

Current wording in today’s Rules of Golf: The course is now defined as the “whole area within any boundaries established by the Committee.”  The putting green is now defined as “all ground of the hole being played that is specially prepared for putting or otherwise defined as such by the Committee.”

The stymie

The stymie was finally eliminated in 1952.  Previously, in singles match play, you were essentially playing defence against your opponent if your ball was on the green and directly in an opponent’s path – hence the term stymied!  Before it was abolished, there were variations that contemplated provisions that a ball could be lifted if it was within six inches of each other.  After that, the wording changed to say the owner may lift the ball if they felt it may be of advantage to the other player, or ‘throughout the green’ a player could have any ball lifted that might interfere with his stroke. You won’t be stymied anymore, but there is a trace of this rule in match play stating that there is no penalty on the putting green if a player’s ball strikes an opponent’s ball.  In stroke play, the player incurs a two-stroke penalty if both balls lay on the putting green and your ball strikes your fellow-competitor’s ball.

Dropping the ball

We’ve not only seen the method of dropping the ball incorrectly by the world’s best golfers, some of them also get confused on where to drop.  The first procedure for dropping a ball came in 1754.  If a player’s ball entered a hazard, you were at liberty to throw it at least six yards behind the hazard.  Many years later, a principle that originated in 1858 and which still exists today, allowed a player to drop on a line from the hole behind the hazard.

One of the most iconic dropping procedures was introduced in 1908, which stated that the player “shall face the hole, stand erect, and drop the ball behind him over his shoulder.”  This method of dropping it over the shoulder lasted until 1984, when the present method of dropping was introduced.

Current wording in today’s Rules of Golf: A ball to be dropped under the Rules must be dropped by the player himself.  He must stand erect, hold the ball at shoulder height and arm’s length and drop it.

Looking ahead, the rules of golf will continue to evolve to preserve the spirit and integrity of the game.  Golf’s governing bodies constantly review and analyze all conditions under which the game is played.  The most recent four-year cycle culminates at the end of 2015 with the new rules code coming into effect January 1, 2016.

Oakville, Ont. (Golf Canada) —Golf Canada and Hudson’s Bay today announced a new multi-year partnership that will see Hudson’s Bay become a proud partner as the exclusive official outfitter for Golf Canada’s National Team Program.

As part of the three-year agreement, Hudson’s Bay has developed a new line of men’s and ladies golf apparel under the Hudson’s Bay brand that will be worn by Team Canada athletes as well as coaches and sport science staff in all games and competitions through 2017.

In addition, Hudson’s Bay becomes the exclusive headwear and apparel licensee for Golf Canada’s Team Canada mark. The line of high performance golf apparel will be available for purchase in many of Hudson’s Bay retail locations across Canada as well as online at www.thebay.com.

“Hudson’s Bay’s is committed to supporting Canadian athletes and we are proud to launch this new partnership as the exclusive official outfitter for Golf Canada’s National Team Program,” says Liz Rodbell, President, Hudson’s Bay.

“Hudson’s Bay has a long history of supporting Canada’s Olympic team and we are thrilled to have such an iconic Canadian brand aligned with Golf Canada and our national team program,” said Golf Canada Chief Commercial Officer Gavin Roth. “Hudson’s Bay recognizes that this is one of the most exciting periods in Canadian golf, and their support through national retail and media channels leading up to and through the Pan Am and Olympic Games will help propel our tremendous young golfers to even greater heights.”

Team Canada athletes will be wearing the official Hudson’s Bay apparel in all golf competitions and events starting in the spring of 2015.

The Pan Am games in Toronto this summer will mark the first time the apparel is worn in a major multinational/multi-sport games. Hudson’s Bay will also outfit Team Canada athletes at other major domestic and international championships including the RBC Canadian Open, Canadian Pacific Women’s Open, Canadian National Amateur Championships, World Amateur Team Championships and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

A portion of proceeds from every sale in Hudson’s Bay stores and on-line will go directly towards supporting Team Canada golfers and high performance programming.

The Team Canada golf line of apparel will appear in Hudson’s Bay stores in time for Father’s Day 2015. Merchandise will also be available for purchase onsite during the 2015 RBC Canadian Open, July 20-26 at Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ont.

Click here for a link to Golf Canada merchandise available through Hudson’s Bay online collection.

Sunny skies and warm temperatures provided ideal conditions for the final day of the CN Future Links Ontario Championship at Pine Knot Golf & Country Club in Dorchester, Ont. Jack Simpson and Alyssa Getty fought until the very end to claim victory in their home province.

Entering the final round of play, Aurora, Ont., native Jack Simpson and Unionville, Ont., product Maxwell Sear were four shots back of leader Nicholas Brisebois of Ottawa. The two Ontarians spent the round trying to best one another, but neither could pull away. When it seemed Simpson had victory within reach, Sear birdied the final hole to send the competition to a playoff.

Jack Simpson however, would not be denied, chipping-in for eagle on the first extra hole to claim the title of 2015 CN Future Links Ontario champion. When asked about the victory, he credited a calm demeanor as the key to his success. “I knew if I just stayed patient and in the moment, birdies would fall and I would be able to post a good score,” said Simpson, who notched four birdies on the day.

Finishing in third place was Quebec City’s Charles-Eric Belanger who carded a final round of 67. Team Canada Development Squad member and Vaughan Ont., product Tony Gil shot a round of 70 to get to 1-under par for the tournament and claim solo fourth place.

National Squad teammate Étienne Papineau finished at 5-under par 66. The St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., native was T5 with seven birdies on the day, including a string of three on holes 12 to 14. Rounding out the Development Squad on the Junior Boys side was Trevor Ranton of Waterloo, Ont., who posted a round of 74 to finish T12.

In the Junior Girls division, Alyssa Getty shot her lowest round of the competition – an even par 71 – to win the CN Future Links Ontario Championship by two strokes over Selena Costabile of Thornhill, Ont. The battle came down to the final hole where Getty notched her third final-round birdie to secure the victory.

“It was back and forth,” Getty said of her round with Costabile. “It was always very close between us in score and that kept it really interesting. It was a fun day of good competition.” Getty adds this year’s CN Future Links Ontario title to a 2015 resume that already includes a victory at the recent Golf Association of Ontario Junior Girls Spring Classic.

Off to a strong early season start, the Ruthven, Ont., native has high hopes for her last season of junior golf. “I want to keep playing well, and see how well I can shoot. I’m happy with my start and excited to see just how well I can play.”

Climbing up the leaderboard to a third place finish was National Team Development Squad member Grace St-Germain. The Ottawa native’s final round of 70 was her best of the tournament.

Jack Simpson and the five runners-ups from the CN Future Links Ontario Championship have earned exemptions into the 2015 Canadian Junior Boys Championship. The tournament will be contested August 3-6 at Summerlea Golf & Country Club in Vaudreuil-Dorion, Que.

The 2015 Canadian Junior Girls Championship will take place August 4-7 at Deer Park Municipal Golf Course in Yorkton, Sask. With today’s victory, Alyssa Getty and the second to sixth place finishers have earned entry into the competition. This sextet has also gained exemptions into a future Canadian Women’s Tour event.

The CN Future Links Championships are a series of six tournaments presented by Golf Canada in partnership with CN in support of golf at the junior level. Team Canada Development Squad members Trevor Ranton and Grace St-Germain were the 2015 series’ first winners, claiming victory at the Pacific edition of the competitions. The next event in the series is the CN Future Links Prairie Championship from June 11-14, hosted by Cooke Municipal Golf Course in Prince Albert, Sask.

Full results from the 2015 CN Future Links Ontario Championship are available here.

FORT WORTH, Texas – Chris Kirk made a par-saving 7-foot putt after an errant tee shot at the 18th hole, avoiding a playoff at Colonial and winning by a stroke Sunday for his fourth PGA Tour victory.

With a closing 4-under 66, Kirk got to 12-under 268, one ahead of Masters champion Jordan Spieth, playing partner Brandt Snedeker and Jason Bohn.

After Kirk hooked his tee shot at No. 18 into the left rough, he hit his approach from 155 yards over the green. A nice chip set up the winning putt.

Snedeker, who closed with a 67, hit a similar tee shot as Kirk on the final hole and hit to 12 feet. But his birdie try, which would have been his first since making six the first 11 holes Sunday, slid past the hole and kept him from tying Kirk.

Bohn had a 63 that included six consecutive birdies on the front nine. Spieth shot 65, with a near-birdie that became a bogey at the par-3 16th hole.

When Kirk got in trouble at No. 18, Bohn and Spieth went to the nearby No. 1 tee and were hitting balls in preparation for a potential playoff.

Spieth was only a few minutes removed from a 20-foot birdie putt at the closing hole, where more than an hour earlier Bohn had a 28-footer that lipped the cup and left him lifting the putter over his head in frustration.

When Kirk made his putt, Spieth was standing near the 18th green watching.

Kirk’s victory for a $1.17 million check came at a saturated Hogan’s Alley, where the sun finally came out late in the final round after heavy rain overnight and throughout tournament week.

Kevin Na, the outright leader after the second and third rounds, shot 72 and finished in an eight-way tie for 10th at 9 under. He was part of a leading four-way tie that included Spieth after the first round.

A 54-hole leader hasn’t won Colonial since Phil Mickelson in 2008.

Spieth was making a bid to win the first of consecutive tournaments at home in the North Texas for the 21-year-old Masters champion from Dallas.

Like all week, Spieth got a rousing ovation when he got to the 18th green. That got even wilder when he finished by draining the long birdie, which was almost good enough for a playoff.

The PGA Tour’s next stop is the Byron Nelson Championship in Irving, where Spieth twice made the cut as a teenage amateur.

Spieth had a 50-foot putt tracking to the cup at the 16th hole Sunday, but the ball went on the right edge and then curled 7 foot to the left. Spieth missed the comeback putt, dropping out to 10 under and out of the lead.

Like the opening round Thursday, the scheduled start of play Sunday was pushed back three hours because of heavy rain overnight. PGA Tour officials said more than 1 1/2 inches of rain fell after the third round was complete, on top of probably 8 inches or so that had already soaked Hogan’s Alley in the past few weeks.

There were no delays Friday or Saturday, though the third round included threesomes instead of twosomes along with earlier-than-usual weekend tee tees. There were also threesomes Sunday.

Bohn started the day with par at No. 1, hitting into the greenside bunker at the par 5 that is the easiest hole at Colonial. But he responded with birdie streak of six in a row, including Nos. 3-5 known as the Horrible Horseshoe because of the layout of difficulty of that trio of holes. His front-side 6-under 29 included a 36-foot birdie putt at No. 4, the 247-yard par 3.

Canada’s Adam Hadwin tied for 5th at 10 under -his best finish on Tour since his tie for 4th at the 2011 RBC Canadian Open.

VIRGINIA WATER, England – Byeong Hun An shot a 7-under 65 to win the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth on Sunday with a tournament record total of 21 under.

The South Korean made five birdies and an eagle in a bogey-free round to finish six strokes clear of Thongchai Jaidee of Thailand (69) and Miguel Angel Jimenez of Spain (67).

The 23-year-old An captured his first European Tour victory after Francesco Molinari, who had at least a share of the lead for the first three rounds, only managed a 74. He finished fifth, nine shots back.

“I was really nervous the whole day,” An said. “I had not even played this course until Monday … My iron shots helped me this week, I hit a lot of greens and did not miss many putts.”

An, who won the U.S. Amateur Open in 2009, takes $918,000 for first place at the European Tour’s flagship event.

The victory comes in his first appearance at Wentworth and also secures him a place at the U.S. Open.

An never showed signs of his nerves in an assured performance on the final day.

He started with birdies on Nos. 2 and 4, where he sent a magnificent bunker shot to within two feet of the flag, before accelerating away from the field with some composed iron play and clinical putting on the back nine.

His third birdie came on No. 11 before he was close to an albatross on No. 12. His approach from 193 yards with a 5-iron nestled inches away from the hole.

An duly tapped in for eagle, and his three-shot advantage grew to four when Jaidee bogeyed the 13th. He sealed his record victory with two more birdies on Nos. 15 and 17.

“It was 15, that birdie, where I thought with three holes to go, that my lead would do it,” An said. “Before then, I never thought about winning it. I tried not to look at the leaderboard but it was not easy.”

Molinari, a three-time European Tour winner, made five bogeys and a double-bogey on No. 16, where the Italian teed off into a fairway bunker before three-putting on the green.

England’s Chris Wood finished fourth after a 6-under 66 took him to 13-under 275 for the tournament. His round included a hole-in-one at No. 14, the fifth of the tournament.

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – There were no last-second buzzer-beaters in Larry Bird’s hometown on a bright, breezy Sunday.

Colin Montgomerie turned in a command performance, shooting a 3-under 69 on the treacherous Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort to win the Senior PGA Championship by four shots.

Montgomerie earned $495,000 for his third senior major championship victory in 10 appearances, including three of the past six. The 51-year-old Scot’s 8-under total of 280 made him one of only five players under par, the fewest since three closed the championship in red numbers at Canterbury in Cleveland in 2009.

Mexico’s Esteban Toledo shot a 69 to finish second.

Montgomerie was happy but drained.

“It was a difficult position to be in at the start of the day, being three ahead,” said Montgomerie, who called Dye’s design one of the iconic courses in America. “Nowhere to go but down with every hole out there a potential double bogey. I could never relax. I could never relax at all.

“Very, very tiring mentally. Every shot had to be executed or you could be in trouble. That’s a test and a half.”

Montgomerie is the first player to successfully defend the Senior PGA title since Hale Irwin won three in succession in 1996-98. Montgomerie is the first to record his first three Champions Tour victories in majors since Jack Nicklaus, who won his first six on the biggest stages.

Montgomerie won the 2013 Senior PGA at Harbor Shores in Michigan, and two months later took the U.S. Senior Open in a playoff over Gene Sauers at Oak Tree in Oklahoma.

It has been an extraordinary life-after-50 turnaround for a player who won 31 European Tour titles, topped that tour’s money list a record eight times, represented Europe in the Ryder Cup eight times but went 0 for 71 in major championships.

Six times he was a runner-up in those majors, three times in the U.S. Open and once each in the British Open and PGA Championship.

“He’s been in contention in majors pretty much his whole career so he’s very familiar with that,” said Brian Henninger, who matched Scott Verplank’s 71 to give both a share fourth place at 2 under. “He obviously hasn’t always executed and performed like he wanted to, but even at his age, he’s probably learned through some of his experiences.”

Toledo started the day at 1 under and but made birdies at 1, 5 and 7 and twice got within a stroke of Montgomerie on the front nine. Both times, the leader answered with a birdie.

After lipping out a short par putt at No. 1, Montgomerie ran off birdies at 5, 7, 9, 10 and 12. He was 9 under for the tournament, five strokes clear of Toledo and in charge.

“That’s what it takes. He knows how to win,” said Toledo, who played without a bogey Sunday. “He loves the pressure. There’s nothing I could have done. It was a great week for me. The course was outstanding, the crowds were great. It was a great tournament.”

Montgomerie made bogeys at 15 and 18 but his lead was too large, his grasp too sure.

“When I holed the putt at 12, I felt safe,” Montgomerie said. “I knew how tough that finish is.”

Montgomerie and his Sunday playing partner and World Golf Hall of Fame colleague, Bernhard Langer, have won four of the last five major championships on the Champions Tour. Jeff Maggert’s win last week in Alabama in the Regions Tradition is the lone exception.

So it seemed the final round might turn into a match play competition between Montgomerie, at 5 under, and Langer, 2 under, in the final twosome, but no drama developed.

Langer caught an awkward lie on the margin of a bunker and the rough alongside the second green and made double bogey. Then he missed the green and bogeyed the par-3 fourth. When Montgomerie birdied Nos. 5 and 7, Langer was seven shots behind.

It was somewhat reminiscent of the 2014 Senior PGA, where they also played in final twosome and Montgomerie shot 65, Langer 70.

Montgomerie’s victory extended an unprecedented Senior PGA streak. International players have won the event four consecutive years: England’s Roger Chapman in 2012, Japan’s Khoki Idoki in 2013 and Montgomerie’s pair.

Canada’s Rod Spittle climbed 30 spots up the leaderboard into a tie for 34th after a final round 69. The St. Catharines, Ont., native finished at 8 over.