Steve Puterski/Lahontan Valley News Scott Piercy lines up his second shot on No. 18 during the third round of the Reno-Tahoe Open at Montreux Golf & Country Club. Piercy won the tournament on Sunday.
RENO - Scott Piercy and his family had vacation plans next week to go to Southern California.
His wife, Sara, still plans to take their two children but Scott won't be joining them. Instead, he'll be playing in his very first PGA Championship in Atlanta starting on Thursday.
Piercy, who set a course record on Saturday with an 11-under-par 61, drained a 7-foot putt for par on the 72nd hole to shoot a 2-under-par 70 and win the 13th annual Reno-Tahoe Open Championship Sunday at Montreux Golf & Country Club.
Piercy finished with a 15-under-par 273, the lowest winning score since Will MacKenzie shot a 268 back in 2007. Pat Perez (68) was a stroke back at 274, while Blake Adams (67) and Steve Flesch (68) tied for third at 275. Jim Renner (68) was alone in fifth at 276, while Matt McQuillan (66), Ben Martin (69), Steve Elkington (71) and Nick O'Hern (71) all tied for sixth at 277.
The win was Piercy's first on the PGA Tour. His previous best finish was a fifth-place tie at the 2009 Honda Classic. Besides the $540,000 payday, he earned a two-year exemption and moved to No. 80 on the FedEx points list.
"I'm just so excited," he said. :I know I don't seem like it probably, but I don't know if it's excited or just relief. Kind of feel like I got the monkey off my back. Been in the final group five times I think and didn't close the deal.
"We always know kind of in the back of our mind what's there. Until you do it, you know, as far as thinking (about it) , no, It helps planning your schedule a little bit easier for next year. Hopefully making a run at the playoff is the next kind of goal. PGA I guess first."
It very easy could have been another failure or a playoff for Piercy, who had his three-shot lead at No. 10 whittled down to nothing after he bogeyed 14. Piercy and Perez traded pars at 15 and 16 before Perez bogeyed No. 17.
That set the stage for an interesting finish.
On the par-5 18th, Perez hit his second shot into the greenside bunker on the left. He blasted out to 11-feet, but missed the birdie putt which, as it turns out, would have forced a playoff.
That meant all Piercy needed to do was make par. Easy, right? Wrong. Piercy hit driver off the tee at the 612-yard par-5, a decision that the talking heads at the Golf Channel questioned. The commentators wondered why he didn't use a 3-wood, especially since he had a stroke to play with.
The shot ended up on the cart path. It would be several minutes before he would hit his next shot, however, as he helped officials look for Josh Teater's errant tee shot which went left. He said it gave him a chance to catch his breath. Teater, coming off a double-bogey at No. 17, bogeyed No. 18 which put him all the way down to 10th.
"You know, I had the adrenaline pumping," Piercy said. "The hands start shaking when you have that much adrenaline going. You're trying to take deep breaths. It gave me a little time to collect myself and calm myself down.
"The wind was down off to our right, or at least right to left. In the past where Josh hit it, I think I made 13 there last year. My go-to shot (with my driver) is kind of a bunt-cut where it just starts straight and cuts off. I felt if I could just hit a high, soft cut I would hold the wind and take the left side out of play. The fairways got a little firmer and faster, and the ball got all the way through the fairway. I was pretty much just trying to take the left side out of play."
Off the cart path, Piercy punched a 6-iron to about 138 yards. He hit a wedge to 36 feet below the hole. All he needed was a two-putt. Seemed easy enough until he pounded his first putt 7 feet past the hole.
He said he misjudged the speed.
"A few holes before that I left it right in the jaws short," Piercy said. "You know there is that ridge. I had to putt it up there. You're putting toward the valley, so it's kind of a facade really what that ridge is. Once it gets over that ridge, it looks uphill but it's really downhill. A little too much power on that one."
That left him with a putt that he's probably made a zillion times.
"It's an inside right putt," Piercy said. "You know it's pretty much back up the hill. It's the kind of putt you wish for every day. It's the circumstances that make the putt difficult. You get the adrenaline pumping and your hands are not as calm. You just kind of block that out and put a good stroke on it."
Perez, who stomped off after Piercy's third shot reached the green, had little to say. In fact, he refused to come to the media center to be interviewed.
And, he has nobody but himself to blame. He missed a 10-foot birdie putt on the par-3 16th and then put his second shot on the par-4 17th into the rough and ended up bogeying the hole which dropped him to 14-under.
Perez said he couldn't take anything positive from the event. He was especially angry at how he played 17 and 18.
"I played those holes as (expletive) as you could possibly play them, bar none. To finish 5-5 is embarrassing. I missed three putts inside 10 feet the last three holes. That's not going to win."
Perez went on to call finishing second "first loser."
Flesch had four sub-par rounds, including three in the 60s. He shot a 4-under 68 to win $174,000 and moved to 115th on the FedEx list.
"Yeah, I played very well," the left-handed Flesch said. "It's the best I've played in a couple years. But looking back, I needed to play the par-5s better this week. That's what I think was the key when I won in '07. But, you know, I think the golf course plays more difficult with the nines switched, because I think 16, 17, 18 are harder coming down the stretch. I think it was a good change.
"It makes me feel good that I still can play. I mean, I kind of would get to the point where I didn't know if I could even compete anymore out here with some of these young guys."
By finishing in the top-10, Flesch qualified for the tournament in Greensboro in two weeks.
"Well, I got one more week," Flesch said. "I'm trying to get into that FedEx Cup, so this week may have done that for me."
Adams was pleased by his overall play, but disappointed that he was unable to finish off some holes with birdies.
"Yeah, it was a good week," he said. "I mean the whole week in general. I had some opportunities coming down the stretch and didn't really capitalize on the par-5s. I actually hit some really good shots."
Adams got to 13-under with a birdie on the 303-yard 14th, but gave it right back with a bogey on No. 15. He parred Nos. 16 and 17 before ending his tournament with a birdie on No. 18.
Another guy who should have been in the group tied for sixth was Teater, who started the day two shots in back of Piercy.
Teater was 13-under going into the 17th where he took a double-bogey 7 and then bogeyed No. 18 to drop from third to a tie for 10th. He shot a 1-over-par 73 for a 72-hole total of 278.
