SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Nev. – Former tennis player Mardy Fish birdied five holes for a 3-under-par 69 and totaled 26 points Sunday to hold off a late charge by the NHL’s Joe Pavelski and capture his second American Century Championship celebrity golf title.
Fish, a former U.S. Davis Cup team captain and Olympic silver medalist, totaled 83 points, four clear of Pavelski’s 79, and was one point shy of tying Billy Joe Tolliver’s tournament record. The former NFL quarterback had 84 points in 2010.
“It’s great. I’ve won a few of the celebrity golf tournaments, and so I felt comfortable kind of coming into here having won in Dallas and in Maine,” Fish said. “And this is the one you really want to win. American Century is really the Super Bowl, culminating the rest of the year.”
The 35th annual tournament at Edgewood Golf Course on the shores of Lake Tahoe has since 2003 used a modified Stableford scoring system that rewards points for pars, birdies and eagles and deducts points for a double bogey or worse.
Fish entered Sunday’s final round with a seven-point lead over Pavelski and birdied four holes on the front nine to build his lead to nine points. Pavelski, who helped the Dallas Stars reach the Stanley Cup semifinals this year and said he is retiring, also got off to a good start and then birdied three holes on the back nine to close the gap to five points when he birdied the par-4 15th. His 5-under 67 was the best round of the day.
“When you’re chasing Fish down, you know you’ll have to go and get it and win it. So, we were going to have to make a few putts,” said Pavelski, who has yet to win here but notched his third straight top-three finish. “I felt I chipped into his lead a little bit. Then all of a sudden it was gone.”
Fish won in 2000 when he set the course record with a 9-under 63. In his last 10 appearances he has finished no worse than seventh. He received $150,000 of the $750,000 purse.
Charles Barkley, the former NBA great and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer, had his best performance in more than 25 years, when he lost any feel for the game and languished annually at or near last place. He finished with minus-4 points for 58th place. It marked the first time in four years, too, that he finished on the positive side of the Caesars Sportsbook proposition wager, finishing among the top 75.
“It feels really good,” Barkley said. “I put a lot of time and effort in. I’ve been working hard for he last few years. The last couple of years actually haven’t been bad. I played really, really well the first two days and I’m proud about today’s round because I started out struggling and found a way to get it together.”
LPGA legend Annika Sorenstam holed out for eagle on the par-4 13th and shot a 3-under 69 for 28 points to finish alone in third place with 68 points. In five appearances at the ACC, the 72-time LPGA winner has never finished outside the top six.
Former major league pitchers John Smoltz (64), Derek Lowe (62) and Mark Mulder (61) rounded out the top six. First-round leader Adam Thielen, a wide receiver for the Carolina Panthers, was alone in seventh (58).
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