Colin Montgomerie might not catch front-runner Bernhard Langer in this year’s Charles Schwab Cup standings on the PGA Tour Champions. But the 2014 U.S. Senior Open champion is certainly making a strong push as the circuit enters its three-tournament playoffs.
Montgomerie, 54, of Scotland, won the SAS Championship – the regular-season finale – on Sunday at Prestonwood Country Club in Cary, N.C., carding an 8-under-par 64 in the final round to defeat Vijay Singh and Doug Garwood by three strokes.
It was Montgomerie’s sixth career PGA Tour Champions victory and second in the past month. In September, he won the Japan Airlines Championship, the Tour’s first event in Japan. His win catapulted him to No. 7 in the Charles Schwab Cup standings.
“[The victory] gives me a huge amount of confidence going into the playoffs, and I look forward to the next few weeks with incentive now,” said Montgomerie, whose season was hampered for 2½ months due to a torn ligament in his left ankle.
Langer, the 2010 U.S. Senior Open champion, pushed his season earnings over $3 million with his tie for 11th. He owns nearly a $600,000 edge on Scott McCarron in the season-long chase.
The playoffs begin next week at The Country Club of Virginia in Richmond, for the top 72 players on the PGA Tour Champions money list.
Do Tops Field in California
While a number of top LPGA Tour players were competing in Korea this past week, Brianna Do, the 2011 U.S .Women’s Amateur Public Links champion, bested a field of 40 professionals and amateurs to claim the second Women’s California State Open on Oct. 12. Do posted a 36-hole total of 9-under 135 (65-70) at Morongo Golf Club at Tukwet Canyon (Champions Course) in Beaumont, Calif., to edge Karah Sanford by four strokes and collect the first-place check of $1,800.
