GOLF ROUNDUP : Price Is Right, Wins Canadian Open by a Shot

Nick Price went down in the valley and came back up in the lead.

Price rode five consecutive birdies to a six-under par 66 Sunday and a one-stroke victory over David Edwards in the 82nd Canadian Open at Oakville, Canada.

“This is very, very special to me,” Price said. “To win a national championship of this stature is so important to me. This will give me a lot more confidence than I’ve had before--ever.”

Price, from Zimbabwe, scored his second victory of the season, and the third of his nine-year PGA Tour career, finishing at 15-under-par 273.

The victory was worth $180,000 from the total purse of $1 million, boosted his season’s earnings to $617,889 and assured him of a place in the season-ending Tour Championship later this year.

Price, who came from six strokes off the pace and had to climb over seven others in the final round, wasn’t even thinking about winning when he went down into the 100-foot deep gorge that contains Sixteen Mile Creek and holes Nos. 11 through 15.

“I was still four or five behind then,” he said.

But he birdied all of the holes in the area designated as The Valley but called The Hole by the players.

He climbed out with the lead, finished with three pars and watched by the 18th green as Edwards, Fred Couples and Ken Green fell short in comeback bids.

Edwards, who chipped in from 30 yards for an eagle on the 16th, finished birdie-birdie, and took second place with a 68.

The long-hitting Couples came to the 18th needing an eagle to tie, but he drove into trouble and had to lay up with his second shot. He had a 69 and finished two shots back in a tie with Green, a former Canadian Open winner, who bogeyed the 17th hole and finished two strokes back after a 70.

Harold Henning sank a 12-foot putt for birdie on the first hole of sudden-death to beat Gibby Gilbert and win the Senior PGA Tour’s First of America Classic at Grand Rapids, Mich.

Both players reached the green of the 488-yard, par-5 10th hole at The Highlands in three. Gilbert’s 15-foot birdie attempt slid past the cup, before Henning’s putt gave him his third Senior Tour victory and first in a playoff. He lost in two other playoffs.

It also completed an improbable comeback made necessary by his one-over-par 72 in Friday’s opening round. He followed that with a 64 on Saturday and got into the playoff with a closing 66 that left him at 202.

“You reach a stage when you think you’ve run out of bullets,” said Henning, who earned $52,500. “You wonder if you are ever going to win again, so it’s an extra special thrill when it happens.”

Henning’s other Senior Tour victories came at the 1985 Seiko-Tucson Match Play Championship and the 1988 GTE Classic.

Gilbert had a final-round 64.

Jim Ferree finished with a 66 and tied for third with Lee Trevino, who had a 67.

Michelle Estill shot a two-under-par 70 to hold off Rosie Jones and win the LPGA Ping-Cellular One tournament at Portland, Ore., by one stroke.

Jones, in her first tournament since dropping out of the Northgate Classic in disgust three weeks ago because she was playing poorly, shot a 66 to finish at 209.

Estill, a 28-year-old rookie, birdied the 15th hole to move into a tie for the lead with Karen Davies, who had a two-stroke lead before she made a bogey on 14.