What a tournament!
If anybody had any doubts about Sandestin Raven hosting the Boeing Championship, they were layed to rest in spades this past weekend!
You couldn't get a better finish to the tournament than Bobby Wadkins, who hadn't won since 2001, hitting what he called, "…the best shot of my life" into the 18th green just 8 feet below the hole to preserve his one-shot win.
And Wadkins 10-under score hit Jerry Pate's prediction (and I must add, mine!) that with any wind, that score would hold up.
There were a lot of naysayers to that when Wadkins opened with a course-record 9-under 62. But he even realized and said, "With a good score on Friday, you just have to hang around."
That's just what he did, carding even par on Saturday and riding his birdie on the 17th hole Sunday to a one-shot win over amazing Raymond Floyd.
Floyd almost struck the ultimate blow for the older crowd, matching his age for the first time on Sunday with a phenomenal 63.
Avowing that it was the first time in a long time that he got "into the zone," Floyd said he didn't feel it early on, but around the turn he suddenly was "in the moment."
I guess! Five straight birdies before he three-putted the par-3 16th from about 45 feet, an approach putt he said he just misread to leave 10 feet short. And then misread that one too for the three-putt to drop into a tie with Wadkins, playing a couple holes behind.
Floyd wasn't really looking forward to a playoff, noting he had needed two treatments a day for his hip problem – that forced him to WD at Birmingham. He was doing stretching exercises between shots on the course Sunday.
Crowds exceeded expectations. The 16,000 on Friday, the 20,000 on Saturday and the 23,000 on Sunday surpassed the largest total in previous editions of the tournament at The Moors by almost 20,000!
Patrons spent more money at concessions on Friday than in an entire weekend at the previous venue. As tournament Executive Director Phil Garcia noted, "That's (revenues) are going to quadruple or quintuple the previous best."
