Wiebe wins Cap Cana Championship by four
PUNTA CANA, Dominican Republic – Mark Wiebe grabbed the lead on Friday and never looked back, cruising to a wire-to-wire victory at the inaugural Cap Cana Championship, the first professional golf event ever held in the Dominican Republic.Wiebe’s final-round 5-under 67 allowed him to finish at 14-under 202, four-strokes ahead of Argentina’s Vicente Fernandez. The win was Wiebe’s second on the Champions Tour in 12 career starts and equaled his victory total in 19 years as a full-time player on the PGA TOUR. He won his first Champions Tour event in his debut on the circuit last fall at the SAS Championship near Raleigh, N.C.
“I feally felt good about my game all week, but I really played my best golf today,” Wiebe said. “There was less wind today so I knew there would be some good scores. I knew it was going to be a challenge and I just had to play my game.”
Wiebe was the only player to post three consecutive rounds in the 60s this week. He started the final round with a three-stroke lead over Scott Hoch. However, his only outside challenger on Sunday was a hard-charging Fernandez. After celebrating his 62nd birthday on Saturday, the Argentinian reeled off five consecutive birdies on the front nine (Nos. 4-8) to briefly trail by only two shots. But Wiebe expanded his margin back to four with a 10-foot eagle putt at the par-5 6th hole and then followed that up with a birdie at the par-3 7th hole, hitting an 8-iron shot to within five feet for birdie.
Fernandez eventually posted a 7-under 65, matching the course record set one day earlier by Japan’s Joe Ozaki. His runner-up finish this week at Cap Cana was his best on the Champions Tour since a second-place performance at the 2003 Emerald Coast Classic in Florida.
Wiebe’s only real hiccup in the final round came when the outcome was no longer in doubt, a double-bogey seven at the par-5 15th hole. After hitting the wrong club off the tee. Wiebe’s second shot landed in a fairway bunker and it took him four strokes to eventually find the green. He then three-putted from 50 feet.
Jay Haas (68) and Craig Stadler (67) managed to place in a tie for third at 9-under 207. For Haas, the Champions Tour Player of the Year in each of the last two seasons, it marked the fifth time he’s finished among the top-six on the final leaderboard but is still winless in six official starts this year. Denis Watson (66), Fulton Allem (68), Nick Price (67) and Hoch (70) all were fifth at 8-under 208.
Wiebe earned a check for $300,000 from the $2,000,000 purse and also collected 300 Charles Schwab Cup points to move into 10th place in the season-long race.
Even though the winds decreased each day, the cumulative scoring average for the event was 72.260. Sunday’s final round saw 51 players break par compared to just 13 professionals with under-par rounds on Friday.
Final-Round News & Notes: Greg Hickman finished T56 in his Champions Tour debut while Joey Sindelar was T61 in his first start since turning 50…Bernhard Langer came up short in his bid to become the quickest-ever to $1 million on the Champions Tour. He now has earned $894,627 in seven starts this year and can match the all-time record of eight events originally established by Hale Irwin (1998) and later equaled by Loren Roberts (2006).
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