— and Completes a 24-Year Double at TPC Sugarloaf
Some courses have a way of remembering you. TPC Sugarloaf, it seems, has a particularly long memory.
Retief Goosen won the Mitsubishi Electric Classic on Sunday in Duluth, Georgia — 24 years after he claimed the PGA Tour’s BellSouth Classic on the very same course. A tidy bit of symmetry for a man who has always made the game look effortlessly unhurried.
The 57-year-old South African closed with a 14-point final round under the Modified Stableford scoring system, finishing on 39 points to beat Stephen Ames by two. It was his fifth win in 150 starts on the Champions Tour.
The Modified Stableford format rewards aggression — birdies earn two points, eagles five, while bogeys cost you one and doubles three. It is golf with the handbrake off. Goosen entered the final round three points behind 36-hole leader Zach Johnson, then made five birdies in a six-hole stretch between the 2nd and 7th to surge clear. A bogey-free back nine and a birdie at the last sealed it with quiet authority. “The putter this week got me going,” Goosen said, “and that’s how you win tournaments.”
Hard to argue with a man who has been saying that sort of thing since his first US Open in 2001.
But the moment that will linger longest had nothing to do with the leaderboard. Goosen’s son Leo, 23, was there in person to watch it happen — the first time he had seen his father win since the 2004 US Open, when Leo was just one year old. “I think the biggest emotion is that I’ve won in front of my son,” Goosen said. Twenty-three years in the making. Worth the wait.
Zach Johnson finished third on 36 points, with Stewart Cink a shot further back in fourth.
At 57, Goosen is proof that timing, touch, and a hot putter remain ageless. A two-time US Open champion. A Champions Tour winner. And now, a man who has conquered the same course in two different decades.
Some courses, it turns out, remember the right people.
