Bill Glasson emerged from the scoring tent and took time to sign autographs for fans and made sure to thank the standard bearers who’d followed his group around Kapolei Golf Club on a warm Sunday afternoon.
But the attention of most of the folks gathered around the 18th green was focused about 50 yards — it just seemed like a mile — away as Willie Wood stepped forward to accept the winner’s trophy of the Pacific Links Hawaii Championship.
For most of Sunday, it appeared Glasson would be the one clutching the award at the end of the day, finally savoring his first victory since 1997 when he was still a member of the PGA Tour.
Instead, his first Champions Tour win again proved elusive as Glasson saw a five-shot lead evaporate in the final round, shooting an even-par 72 on Sunday to finish at 13-under-par 203.
Glasson has now played 249 tournaments on three tours (PGA, Web.com and Champions) since winning the Las Vegas Invitational about 15 years ago.
"That was a lifetime ago," Glasson said. "That was six or seven surgeries, a divorce, a lighting strike. That person doesn’t exist anymore and I think a lot of guys out here are in the same boat.
"It’s been a while and the person who they announce on the tee who won seven times, he doesn’t exist anymore. This is a whole new ballgame."
Glasson, who was flying a plane when it was struck by lighting in 1999, didn’t have a par over the final eight holes, riding a roller coaster of three birdies and five bogeys. Still, he kept the field at arm’s length throughout the afternoon until Wood caught him with a birdie on No. 17.
Glasson answered with a birdie of his own on the par 5 to move to 14 under and was on the tee box on No. 18 when Wood drained a 20-foot birdie putt up ahead to match him again.
"That’s what you want," said Glasson, who made $158,400 for his highest finish on the Champions Tour. "If you told me when I got here last Monday that I was standing on the 18th tee on Sunday with a chance to win the golf tournament, I would have said, ‘yeah, right.’ How can you not want that?"
Glasson ripped his drive down the fairway to within 80 yards and pulled out a sand wedge with thoughts of making birdie to win.
That notion was brushed away when his approach shot got caught in the breeze, drifted to the left and spun off the green.
"It was my bad, I really didn’t intend to hit it so high. I was going to hit a lower shot, try to carry it past and spin it back," Glasson said.
"I got it up in the air then it finally occurred to me, well, its a right-to-left wind up there and it starts sailing a little bit and I go, ‘man, this is going to spin into the water.’ "
The ball stayed dry and his chip rolled about 10 feet past the pin. Needing to make the par putt to force a playoff, Glasson hit it through the break and the ball stayed to the right, giving Wood his second Champions Tour win in the last month.
"If it comes down to a chipping and putting contest, I’ll take Willie any day of the week over pretty much anybody," Glasson said.
Glasson acknowledged he doesn’t regularly practice those elements of his game due to the strain on his back, and he wasn’t all that comfortable with his swing even as he moved up the leaderboard in the first two rounds.
"If I’m not hitting it, it can very easily come unraveled," Glasson said. "I just don’t put the time in and I’m the first one to admit it. …If I start missing greens, my short game is just not strong enough to make up for it."
