Longest Day Ends With a Long Putt

Bob Murphy finished the Senior PGA Tour’s longest day with an unlikely 80-foot putt on the ninth playoff hole to win the Toshiba Senior Classic on Sunday at Newport Beach.

The putt, which was hit from the lower tier of the 17th green and paused for an instant before falling, gave Murphy the victory over Jay Sigel and the $150,000 first-place check.

It was the longest playoff in senior tour history, surpassing the eight holes it took Orville Moody to beat Bob Betley in the 1992 Franklin Showdown Classic in Utah.

Murphy and Sigel played the 16th, 17th and 18th holes three times during the playoff. They each birdied 18 twice and parred the rest until the finish.

“I was sort of getting dizzy,” Sigel said. “We were going around and around and around.”

Murphy had several opportunities to end it, starting with the 18th hole of regulation play when he missed a six-foot birdie putt to finish 54 holes at six-under-par 207. Sigel, who won $88,000 for second place, had birdied the final three holes to finish six under. The pair finished regulation one stroke ahead of Bob Charles, Isao Aoki and Gil Morgan.

Murphy missed putts of about eight feet on the fourth and sixth playoff holes, prolonging a day that stretched 90 minutes beyond the expected finish. At one point during the playoff, his wife Gail was heard to say: “Just make a putt so we can go home.”

Murphy actually made a dramatic one to stay alive on the seventh playoff hole. It was on the par-five 18th, the fourth time he and Sigel had played the hole.

Sigel had chipped to within a foot for his birdie, and Murphy was on the back fringe, about 18 feet from the pin. His aggressive putt rolled straight into the hole, sending the twosome back out to the 16th.

“That’s everything that you live for to get yourself in position to win. In that case it was to tie, and sometimes those are even harder,” Murphy said. “Boy, when you stand there and you read it and you execute it and it goes in, that’s the greatest feeling.”

Then it was back to the reality of another playoff hole. Murphy wasn’t weary. “Adrenaline takes care of that,” he said.

Good fortune took care of the rest. After they parred the par-four 16th, Sigel seemed to get the advantage with his tee shot on the 190-yard, par-three 17th. After Murphy’s five-iron 17th easily cleared the water but barely made the green, Sigel hit his tee shot into the middle on the upper tier.

Murphy stepped up to his final putt hoping to get it close.

“I hit the putt and it went right over my mark,” Murphy said, “it went over the top and started rolling down and I said, ‘Son of a gun, this may go in the hole’ and it did.

“You never, ever expect to make them. You are trying to two-putt from there. Anywhere inside of four feet I would have said, ‘Thank you very much and let’s go on to the next hole.’ ”

Instead, Murphy flipped his putter about four feet behind him, knocked his straw hat off his head, turned and walked away for several paces, hands holding his shaking head.

Sigel, who was going after his third victory on the senior tour, could only smile. “I asked him jokingly whether that was a chip or a putt.” Sigel said. “That was good stuff.”