Inspired Hoch Finally Ends His Winless Streak

Scott Hoch was wondering if he ever was going to get it going Sunday in the final round of the Greater Greensboro Chrysler Classic at Greensboro, N.C.

Then he felt inspiration from an old friend--the late Payne Stewart.

“I just told him to try to help us get through the day and I really felt he was out there today,” said Hoch, who used Stewart’s former caddie, Mike Hicks.

“I just started thinking about it when I got a little down and then something just turned me around. I can’t say what it was,” said Hoch, who broke down in tears talking about Stewart, who died in a plane crash in October 1999. “I just felt kind of a calmness out there.”

Hoch broke loose from his slow start to snap his 94-tournament winless streak on the PGA Tour, shooting a final-round 69 to win $630,000, the biggest purse of a career that has spanned more than two decades.

Hoch, 45, won his ninth event and first since the 1997 Greater Milwaukee Open with a 72-hole total of 16-under 272. He defeated Brett Quigley and Scott Simpson by one stroke despite a bogey at No. 18.

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Rosie Jones birdied the first playoff hole in the Kathy Ireland Championship at Austin, Texas, to defeat South Korea’s Mi Hyun Kim and become the first American to win this year on the LPGA Tour.

Jones, who birdied the final hole of regulation to force the playoff, turned around and did it again on the same hole. It ended a streak of 10 consecutive tour victories by international players, the longest stretch without an American winner in LPGA history.

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Hale Irwin shot his third consecutive seven-under 65 to pull away from Gil Morgan and win the Bruno’s Memorial Classic at Birmingham, Ala., shattering the tournament scoring record.

Irwin’s 21-under 195 total was six shots better than the previous record set by Jim Dent in 1994 and matched by Graham Marsh in 1995. Australia’s Stewart Ginn closed with a 67 to finish second, four shots behind Irwin.