CARY, N.C. — Vijay Singh became the second-oldest player to win on the PGA Tour Champions on Sunday when the 63-year-old Fijian closed with a 3-under 69 for a two-shot victory in the SAS Championship.
Singh made four birdies in a six-hole stretch around the turn to get in front of a crowded leaderboard and then left the mistakes to everyone else while closing with six straight pars to win by two over Ernie Els.
Bernhard Langer is the only other player older than Singh to win on the 50-and-older circuit. Langer won at age 67, and the German has five other Champions Tour titles at 64 or older.
“This was a big one,” Singh said after tapping in for one final par. “It’s been a tough year, all year, and then I didn’t know how I was going to play this morning. My back doesn’t do very well in cold. I didn’t hit my irons as good as I wanted to, but I got the job done.”
A 34-time winner on the PGA Tour, it was only his sixth PGA Tour Champions title and first in just over three years. Singh did not have a top 10 finish all year until winning Sunday.
Els closed with a 69 and was runner-up. The last challenge came from Tim O’Neal, one shot behind until he tried to hit out of a fairway bunker on the par-5 17th hole. The ball hit the top of the lip and tumbled into a creek, leading to a double bogey-bogey finish for O’Neal.
Matthew Goggin was the only player to move into the top 72 who qualify for the Charles Schwab Cup postseason that starts next week in St. Louis.