Wiebe’s Week

From the first-round 64 to the final sweet swing of his putter, it was Mark Wiebe’s week.

Wiebe caught Corey Pavin with birdie on the final hole of regulation Sunday. He beat Pavin with an improbable par putt on the second playoff hole to win the Pacific Links Hawaii Championship.

The winning shot came after Wiebe chose to putt from the fringe, calling his lie "too gnarly" to chip. The ball broke dead left off the slope and stopped 20 feet from the hole.

"I got up to mark my ball and I looked up to the hole," Wiebe recalled. "I said, ‘I’m going to make this putt, there’s no doubt about it.’ "

After Wiebe gleefully grabbed his golf ball out of the hole, Pavin left his 10-foot par putt short. It was his only bogey of the day.

"He made a fabulous putt," Pavin said. "I’m just a little mad for leaving that putt short."

It shocked Wiebe, who had already asked the official what hole was next.

The winner shot even-par 72 in the final round to finish at 11-under 205. Pavin, one of four Hawaiian Open winners in the top six, caught him with a 69. It is his 11th consecutive round in the 60s, two short of Hale Irwin’s senior record.

Pavin, who has won once on the Champions Tour since joining in 2010, has now finished top three in his last five starts.

"I’m obviously knocking on the door," he said. "I just have to open that door and walk through it. I played well enough to do it today and Mark just played a little bit better."

Wiebe won $270,000 and a two-year exemption to the season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai.

He is now 3-0 in senior playoffs and this was his second win in seven starts, beginning with the Senior British Open two months ago. That was the first major of the 56-year-old’s career.

"I’ve never won multiple times in a year. I don’t even know what to think," Wiebe said. "I’m stoked, I’ll tell you that. I played my butt off today and it wasn’t going good. I just played my butt off."

He has five senior titles to go with two PGA Tour wins now — and a little more to talk about with son Gunner, who is rooming with Hawaii’s Alex Ching on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica this year.

Gunner was texting his mother, Cathy, all day. The last two touched her heart.

"Toughest guy I know," he wrote, followed by "This is really awesome stuff. It’s so cool you got to be there. It’s been 27 years since you got to see him win."

That would be his father’s first victory, the Anheuser-Busch Classic in 1985. Gunner wasn’t born, but he is now old enough to know this one felt just as good.

What he didn’t know was that he had an impact on the playoff.

Pavin and Wiebe somehow salvaged pars on the first playoff hole. Pavin made a spectacular pitch shot that stopped 6 feet below the hole. Wiebe drove short into the right rough and launched a great second shot that rolled through the green and down the slope.

Wiebe contemplated 60-degree wedge or 8-iron for his third shot, then thought of his son and went for the lob wedge, putting his shot 4 feet from the hole.

"I was going to chip with an 8-iron, but I thought ‘It’s time to suck it up,’ " Wiebe recalled. "I’ve been working on this shot with Gunner and I know what he would say. He’d say nice and low to the ground, let your wrist cock on the way back and get the club to go back and not up. That’s all I thought about and I almost pitched it in."

Pavin, three back to start the day, caught Wiebe when Wiebe bogeyed the 10th hole along with their playing partner, Vijay Singh. In his Champions Tour debut, Singh could not keep up, fading over the final six holes.

Wiebe and Pavin traded the lead all through the back nine. Wiebe grabbed back the advantage he had held since his spectacular 22-putt round Friday, sinking yet another birdie on the 12th.

He bogeyed the next hole and Pavin was alone in first — for the first time — when he birdied the par-5 14th to move to 11 under.

Wiebe caught him again with birdie on the next hole, draining another bomb, but he gave that back with bogey on the 16th.

Just when Pavin’s bogey-free precision in Kapolei’s wild wind looked like it would be decisive, Wiebe found a bit more magic.

His approach shot on the 54th hole landed softly and stopped 8 feet from the hole after Pavin put his approach about 15 feet away.

"Corey hit a great second shot in there," Wiebe said. "All that told me was I’ve got to hit a great shot. He’s not going to make a bogey. He’s probably going to make a birdie. I’ve got to hit a great shot and I did."

After Pavin missed a putt to win, Wiebe’s birdie putt died in the hole to force overtime.

Everyone else either started too far back — see Esteban Toledo and Fred Couples, who both shot 66 — or suffered a Sunday setback too major to make up.

Singh loomed large over that group. He double-bogeyed the 13th and was 2 over on the back nine — with birdies on both par 5s.

He tumbled out of the top five and into a six-way tie at 8 under that included Couples, who also suffered a double-bogey.

John Cook, who won the season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai, tied Toledo for fourth at 9 under. Cook was a double-bogey on the fifth from joining the playoff.

Langer was third alone, ultimately left out of the playoff because he three-putted the 16th for bogey.