Hayes wins first PGA title in Buick Classic playoff vs. Furyk

But Hayes does have the Buick Classic championship Furyk may have thought he was destined to win when Furyk spectacularly eagled the last hole of regulation Sunday to force a playoff.

Instead, Hayes won his first PGA tour title by rolling in a 6-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole at the Westchester Country Club.

"I was a little bit nervous over that putt, but not as nervous as I thought I'd be in that situation," he said. "I felt very confident. I felt like I was going to make it. I saw the line and it seems like everything went right."

It was a putt that might change the 32-year-old Hayes' life, or at least his golfing fortunes.

He is assured of membership on the PGA Tour in 1999 after having ping-ponged between the PGA and the Nike tours since 1991. He is exempt from qualifying for PGA events for two years. He will play in the 1999 Masters.

And Hayes made $324,000, not much less than the $368,610 he had won previously in five PGA Tour years. His best previous finish had been a tie for sixth in the Anheuser Busch Golf Classic in 1992, and he had missed the cut in five of the eight PGA events he had entered this year.

The Buick Classic was shortened to 54 holes because of play suspensions on Friday and Saturday due to heavy rain, fog, lightning and darkness.

Hayes didn't even finish his second round until Sunday morning - 43 hours after he was to have started it - when he made two birdies on the five holes he hadn't completed when play was called off Saturday night.

He started the final round at 9-under, tied with Furyk, and both golfers shot 3-under 68s playing in the same final pairing over a course that remained soggy with some low-lying areas still under water.

Their play down the stretch alternated between shaky and stellar.

Both golfers bogeyed Nos. 14 and 16. But Furyk also drilled a 4-iron to within 2 feet on the par-4 15th hole for birdie and, trailing Hayes by one on the par-5 18th, he hit a 3-wood 240 yards from the fairway to within 10 feet of the cup.

Hayes, meanwhile, knocked his second shot into a bunker about 40 feet right of the pin on the 18th. He said he assumed it was a cinch Furyk, perhaps the PGA's best putter, would make eagle and that he needed birdie to get into a playoff.

Hayes scooped the ball out of the wet sand to within 2 feet of the cup and tapped it in.

In the playoff starting on No. 18, Furyk said he hit what was "probably the wrong shot" when he opted to use a 3-wood after just catching the rough with his drive. The grass twisted the club head, Furyk's ball hooked into deeper rough and he had to settle for a third shot, which landed 40 feet from the pin. He missed his birdie putt by a yard.

Hayes, meanwhile, was in the fringe about 35 feet from the hole in two and after a tentative first putt, he holed out the tournament winner.

Oddly, it was the third time Sunday that Hayes had played the 18th hole between the second round, third round and playoff. And the third time he birdied it.

"I don't know if I've ever even played the same hole three times in one day," he said.

For Furyk, it was a disappointing end to another Sunday where his name was near or at the top of a leaderboard. He has finished second five times since 1997, when he set a PGA record for earnings by a non-winner with $1.6 million.

On the other hand, he had the consolation of making $194,400 Sunday to push his 1998 money total to just over $1 million.

"It beats the alternative," he said. "It beats playing poorly."

No other golfer threatened to join the Furyk-Hayes duel for the title Sunday. Tom Lehman shot a 65 to finish third at 204. Bruce Fleisher, the 49-year-old former U.S. Amateur champion, was alone in fourth place with 69-205. Tom Byrum and Jeff Maggert finished another stroke back.

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