CHARLESTON, S.C. — Ken Duke picked a good time to peak.
Duke (Arkadelphia, Henderson State) shot 4-underpar 68 Sunday to win the season-ending Nationwide Tour Championship and secure a PGA Tour card for 2012.
Duke, 42, finished at 10-under 278 on the Ralston Creek Course at the Daniel Island Club to earn $180,000 and jump from 36th to seventh on the money list. The top 25 in the money rankings earned PGA Tour spots, and Duke was the only player to move from outside the top 25 to PGA Tour qualifying.
“It’s been a great week,” said Duke, who was 91st on the money list in early August before a second-place finish in the Cox Classic got him rolling. “I haven’t won in a long time, and I knew I had to have a good finish to get in the top 25. ... it is a great feeling to know I will be back on the PGA Tour next year.”
Duke’s only other Nationwide victory came at the BMW Classic in 2006, the year he earned his PGA Tour card for the first time. He was the only player to shoot in the 60s Sunday, finishing with 1 eagle, 4 birdies and 2 bogeys.
Duke finished the Nationwide season with $313,241 after 25 events.
“With today’s weather conditions and the way the course was playing, I knew I had to keep ball in the fairway, be patient and make some putts,” Duke said. “When I made the eagle putt on No. 6 and got above everyone, I just wanted to play safe and hang on.”
Scott Brown shot 70 to finish second, two strokes back. He finished eighth on the money list.
Brown made a long parsaving putt on the 17th and birdied the 18th, when a bogey down the stretch would’ve dropped Billy Hurley III to No. 26 and given David Lingmerth (Arkansas Razorbacks) the final qualifying spot.
Lingmerth shot 70, but bogeys on the 15th and 16th holes dropped him into a tie for third and gave Hurley the last spot. Hurley shot 73 to finish tied for 18th.
Jason Kokrak, who began the final round with a onestroke lead over Duke, shot 75 and finished tied for fifth. It was just the third time in the past 18 Nationwide Tour finales the 54-hole leader did not win the tournament. J.J. Killeen won the money title with $414,273.
Duke spent three full seasons on the PGA Tour (2007-2009) before losing his card after finishing No.127 on the money list in 2009. Duke’s most successful year on the PGA Tour came in 2008, when he earned $2,238,885 and finished 22nd in the FedEx Cup standings. Duke has played in 138 PGA Tour events with 84 cuts made and $5,241,192 in career earnings.
“You know the holes you can birdie, you know the holes you gotta make par on,” Duke said. “I feel like my golf game fits better for that [PGA] Tour than this [Nationwide] Tour.”
Brenden Pappas (Arkansas Razorbacks) shot a finalround 77 and finished tied for 47th in the tournament and 41st on the money list.
EUROPEAN TOUR
Garcia wins again
SOTOGRANDE, Spain — Sergio Garcia held off fellow Spaniard Miguel Angel Jimenez to win the Andalucia Masters by one shot Sunday for his second consecutive European Tour victory.
Garcia shook off two early bogeys with two birdies to card an even-par 71 and finish at 6-under 278.
“I have so much history here and unfortunately it wasn’t as good as this until now,” said Garcia, who had previously finished runner-up three times on the course.
Jimenez seized the lead early when Garcia threeputted the sixth hole and bogeyed the next. Jimenez, 47, dropped shots on the 13th and 15th before making two birdies to press Garcia until the last hole. Jimenez had a chance at pulling even with a birdie on the 18th, but his 15-foot putt fell short and Garcia made par.
Garcia, 31, won the Castello Masters by 11 strokes last weekend to end a nearly three-year title drought.
PGA TOUR/ASIAN TOUR
Van Pelt wins Classic
SELANGOR, Malaysia — Bo Van Pelt ran away with the Asia Pacific Classic on Sunday in hot and humid conditions, birdieing five of the last eight holes for a 7-under-par 64 and a six-stroke victory.
“I’ve watched other guys coming down 18 with a big lead and I thought, ‘That would be fun some day if I could do that.’ And it was,” Van Pelt said, “I feel like the luckiest guy in the world. I get to do what I love to do for a living.”
The winner of the PGA Tour’s 2009 U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee, Van Pelt finished at 23 under at The Mines and earned $1.3 million in the second-year event sanctioned by the PGA and Asian tours.
Jeff Overton was second after a 69.
SHANGHAI MASTERS
McIlroy cashes in
SHANGHAI — U.S. Open champion Rory McIlroy won $2 million in the Shanghai Masters on Sunday, beating Anthony Kim with a par on the first hole of a playoff.
McIlroy holed a 2-foot putt for the victory after Kim missed a 3-footer.
McIlroy, 22, had a chance to win in regulation, but he missed an 8-foot birdie putt. He closed with an even-par 72 to match Kim (69) at 18 under.
“It’s something that I feel like I can still get better at is winning and putting yourself in the position to win when you’re not playing your best,” said McIlroy, of Northern Ireland. “Even if it’s scrappy golf where you grind it out, you’re going to win a lot more tournaments by doing that rather than playing your best golf the whole week. I was very happy I was able to pull this one out.”
The $2 million first prize is the richest in golf. Because the event isn’t sanctioned by a major tour, there were no ranking points at stake. Kim earned $750,000.
Hunter Mahan (70) and South Korea’s Noh Seung-yul (73) tied for third at 13 under in the 30-man event.
Sports, Pages 13 on 10/31/2011