Men's Golf | 8/16/2016 10:20:00 AM
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Georgia Southern men's golf alum Gene Sauers has made the absolute most of his second chances.
Sauers holed a four-foot, par-saving putt on hole 18 to fend off Miguel Angel Jimenez and win the U.S. Senior Open Championship by a stroke Monday at Scioto Country Club.
The pair was tied at 3-under-par heading to the 18th hole. Jimenez ran his shot from the greenside bunker 10 feet by the hole and missed the putt coming back to leave the door open for Sauers, whose pretty chip from the front of the green set him up for the win.
It was sweet redemption for Sauers, who missed an 8-foot snake of a downhill putt to win the U.S. Senior Open Championship at Oak Tree National in Oklahoma two years ago. He wound up losing to Colin Montgomerie in a three-hole playoff.
Relief was his primary emotion after the ball rolled in Monday.
"'Did I win? Did I really win?' That's what I was thinking. 'Yeah? Okay thank goodness,'" Sauers said. "I didn't miss this one. You know I missed a short one there two years ago so I got it back this year."
The victory capped a long comeback from a life-threatening disease for the 53-year-old Sauers, a Savannah resident. He was misdiagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 2005 and his conditioned worsened to the point he was given a 25 percent chance of survival. He eventually was diagnosed with having Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, a rare skin disease.
Sauers said that when he was finally able to play golf again, he could barely hit a wedge 10 yards. He did not play competitively again until 2012, and then joined the PGA Champions Tour. Monday's win was the first on the senior tour for Sauers, who won three times on the PGA Tour.
"It hasn't sunk in yet," Sauers said. "It's been a long time for me. I didn't touch a club for seven years, and I didn't know if I'd ever be playing again. It's pretty amazing to come out here and to win a major. I'm humbled to be here."
Putting has been a key to Sauers' recent success, which includes seven top-25 finishes in 13 events this season, and proved to be a huge for him Monday.
"I've been hitting the ball really solid, and I switched to cross-hand putting back a few months ago and that's helped a lot also," he said. "I wish I would have changed 20 years ago, but I felt good this week."
Sauers was inducted into the Georgia Southern Athletics Hall of Fame in 1991. As an Eagle student-athlete, he was Trans America Athletic Conference Player of the Year in 1983 and led the Eagles to a second consecutive TAAC golf title as a junior. He recorded seven top-10 finishes in 10 tournaments in 1983. He was inducted into the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame in 2012.
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