It took a fifth day to conclude the 27th Senior Open Championship, surely the most unique and dramatic in its history, but in the end it was Mark Wiebe who prevailed after defeating Bernhard Langer in the fifth hole of sudden-death on Monday morning.
After a final round on Sunday that was plagued by two suspensions of play due to the threat of storms, Langer uncharacteristically threw away a two-shot lead on the final hole to fall into a playoff with the 55-year-old American Wiebe. With darkness starting to descend over Royal Birkdale, the players made the decision to attempt to complete the Championship in a playoff. After matching each other on the first extra hole, after a little deliberation, they returned to the 18th tee for yet another attempt. By this time, it was dark and the players couldn’t track the flight of their ball after striking it. However, despite that, the players matched each other again with pars, and play was suspended for the night due to darkness at 9.41pm.
Returning at 8am on Monday morning, Langer and Wiebe returned to the 18th tee once again. After continuing to achieve parity, their third visit to the 18th tee in the morning, and fifth overall, would prove to be decisive. After finding the rough off the tee, Wiebe produced a brilliant bumped shot onto the green within 30-feet of the hole. The American would two-putt for par, leaving Bernhard Langer, the Senior Open champion of 2010, a putt to extend the playoff. Agonisingly, the putt would miss by the slimmest of margins, handing the Championship to Mark Wiebe who wins his first major championship on the Champions Tour.
“I'm speechless,” said Wiebe, a two-time winner on the PGA Tour. “Shocked, too. I just planned on Bernie making that putt on the fifth extra hole and I actually was wondering already what hole we were going to go to now. Do we go back to 18 or do I start on a new hole?
“I think it's always better for both players had there been a birdie to win the playoff instead of a bogey, but right now, I don't really care. I'm glad it's over, and I'm honoured.
“I just was luckier today and last night than Bernie I guess. I also feel like Bernie has won, what, a couple hundred tournaments. He's won so many, I feel like this was my turn.”
It was his turn, and Wiebe becomes the eighth American to lift this trophy after the longest playoff in the history of the Championship.
This defeat marks another year of disappointment for Langer, who had led at Turnberry after 54-holes last year before struggling in the final round. The legendary two-time Masters champion will regret the finish to the tournament in regulation play, when he required just a bogey to win his second Senior Open. However, having found the greenside bunker with his approach, he took two shots to get out and his resulting double bogey saw him fall into the playoff. Typically, Langer was gracious in defeat.
“It was really my tournament to win or lose coming down 18 on Sunday, and I made a major error by taking on the green,” said Langer.
“It almost felt like Jean Van de Velde, if not quite. But that was certainly a bad error and shouldn't have happened as experienced as I am. But under the battle and are under the long delay, we had two rain delays, as you know, the mind and the brain doesn't always work 100 per cent right.
“Mark is a very deserving champion. He played a great week of golf, and we know he's a great putter and he's hit some really good shots this week.”
It’s a performance that has really come from nowhere from Wiebe, who hadn’t posted a single top ten finish on the Champions Tour in 2013, after suffering from recurring back and arm problems. However, he felt better coming into this Championship, and he made the journey across the Atlantic in a positive mood:
“Once I realised I could play and it didn't hurt very much to swing, I was instantly in a great mood, and I knew I was playing good,” said Wiebe.
“I had been playing with my son who kicks my rear end a lot, and he even said, ‘Dad, you're playing great.’ I said, ‘well, it's something that I can do when I'm not having this pain and I think that helped me so much with my attitude, just being able to swing a golf club.
“I love playing over here. I just love it. It's the greatest.”
Wiebe will return to the United Kingdom next year, with his victory at Birkdale earning him an exemption into the 143rd Open Championship next year at Royal Liverpool, before he defends his Senior Open title at Royal Porthcawl in Wales.
It was a dramatic finish to a Championship that has been a significant success. 45,575 fans passed through the gates at Royal Birkdale during the tournament, which breaks the record set in 2008 at Royal Troon by over 4,000. It was a unique, dramatic and successful Senior Open, and it is one that will forever be cherished in the mind of Mark Wiebe.
Mark Wiebe, the Senior Open champion of 2013.