Mayfair Shoots Par and Wins By Three

By the time the wind and slick greens of Southern Hills finally caught up with Billy Mayfair at the Tour Championship, he had a big enough lead to hold on Sunday for the biggest payoff of the year.

Mayfair won the $3-million season-ending tournament at Tulsa, Okla., by shooting a three-over-par 73, giving him an even-par total of 280 over a course that yielded only one round below par Sunday and only 14 sub-par rounds for the tournament.

His three-stroke victory gave him $540,000. He finished second on the money list with $1,543,192, about $111,000 behind Greg Norman.

“I felt I could shoot a little over par and win,” said Mayfair, who won the Western Open and had five other top 10 finishes this year. “But when you have the best players in the world out here, you never know. You just have to play the best you can and hope it’s good enough.”

PGA champion Steve Elkington missed a three-foot par putt on the 18th hole that cost him $58,500. The bogey dropped him into a tie with Corey Pavin. Both shot 73 and finished the tournament three over, earning $265,500 each.

Elkington won the Vardon Trophy for the lowest scoring average, overtaking Nick Price, who finished 19 over.

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Bob Charles made a 12-foot birdie putt on the third playoff hole to beat Dave Stockton and capture the $600,000 Kaanapali Seniors Classic in Hawaii.

The New Zealander started the final round of the 54-hole event in a six-way tie for fifth place, but moved quickly up the leader board with a three-under 68.

Charles, who earned $90,000, and Stockton, the tour’s money leader, finished regulation at nine-under 204. Lee Trevino appeared in command at 11 under through 14 holes, but a bogey and double bogey the next two holes deprived him of his third championship of the year. He finished at 205.

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Germany’s Alexander Cejka won the $1.125-million Volvo Masters at Sotogrande, Spain, while runner-up Colin Montgomerie of Scotland finished atop the European money list for the third year in a row.

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Meg Mallon shot a seven-under-par 65, helping players from the LPGA come from behind for a 19-17 victory over the Japanese counterparts in the Nichirei International tournament at Ina, Japan.

Motor Racing

Ricky Rudd won the race and Dale Earnhardt barely kept alive his Winston Cup championship battle with Jeff Gordon in the Dura-Lube 500k at Phoenix International Raceway.

While Rudd was earning his 16th career victory and extending his string of seasons with at least one win to 13 in a row, Earnhardt was cutting into Gordon’s point lead for the third consecutive race, slicing the margin to 147 with only the season finale Nov. 12 at Atlanta remaining.

One by one, Michael Schumacher’s rivals found themselves slipping in the rain, tumbling through the sand and waving helplessly for the mechanics at the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka. But the German raced flawlessly to his ninth victory this season, tying Nigel Mansell’s 1992 Formula One record. He can break it next month in the season finale, the Australian Grand Prix. Mika Hakkinen of Finland was second, 19.337 seconds behind.

Tennis

Austria’s Thomas Muster, the French Open champion, defeated MaliVai Washington, 7-6 (8-6), 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, to win the Eurocard Open at Essen, Germany, for his 12th title of the year and his first ever indoors. . . . Slava Dosedel of the Czech Republic defeated third-seeded Marcelo Rios of Chile, 7-6 (7-3), 6-3, to win the $230,000 Hellmann’s Cup at Santiago, Chile.

Miscellany

Denver Bronco wide receiver Mike Pritchard, one of three nominees for the team’s “Man of the Year Award,” was arrested in Boulder, Colo., for investigation of vehicular assault and driving while impaired after his sports car ran into two pedestrians, police said.

A group of women faculty at Nebraska wants the student conduct code amended to suspend from extracurricular activity any student convicted of a violent crime. The proposal, to be submitted to the Faculty Senate Nov. 7, comes after star running back Lawrence Phillips was allowed to return to football after pleading no contest to charges that he attacked an ex-girlfriend.

Washington tied second-ranked UCLA, 1-1, and won the MetLife Soccer Classic at UCLA with a tournament record of 1-0-1. Earlier, Cal State Fullerton beat fourth-ranked Brown, 1-0.

The final game of the World Series got a preliminary overnight rating of 19.8, down 2% from the overnights two years ago. Saturday night’s game got a 34 share on the overnights, Nielsen Media Research said, identical to the share on the overnights two years ago for the Toronto-Philadelphia Game 6.

About 200 of the approximate 270 surviving Negro League baseball players gathered for the first time in Kansas City, Mo., to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the formation of the Negro National League.