Willis wins first event as PGA member

One day, Garrett Willis was unknown to his playing partners. The next, he was the Tucson Open champion with a two-year exemption and a guaranteed ticket to next year's elite Mercedes Championships.

The 27-year-old rookie with the University of Tennessee bag shot a 3-under-par 69 today and won his first event as a card-carrying member of the PGA Tour by sinking a 6-foot putt to save par on the final hole. He beat Kevin Sutherland by one stroke.

"Here I am, a month out of Q (qualifying) School, and I went there not knowing where I was going to be playing this year, and now I'm a PGA (Tour) winner,'' Willis exulted. "What a country this is.''

It was a repeat performance of sorts for the North Carolina native, who won a Hooters Tour title in Decatur, Ala. in his first professional tournament out of East Tennessee State in 1996.

Willis, who finished at 15-under 273, qualified for the 1998 and 1999 U.S. Opens and played in the 1995 Canadian Open as an amateur, failing to make a cut in any of them. He also failed to make the cut in his last nine Buy.com tournaments last year -- one reason he has no bag sponsor.

Then, after changing his mind about asking for the entry fee back, he shot a fifth-round 63 to earn a PGA Tour card en route to finishing in a tie for 11th at the Qualifying School in December.

He earned $540,000 for his win today, vaulting to third on the PGA Tour money list behind Accenture Match Play champion Steve Stricker and Jim Furyk, who won the Mercedes Championships -- an event for winners from the previous year -- on Sunday.

Willis became the third player to win in his first action as a PGA member. The others were Ben Crenshaw at the 1973 San Antonio-Texas Open, and Robert Gamez in Tucson in 1990.

The tournament ran late because snow and rain Friday forced a one-day postponement of the second round. But scores were low again in the second day of warm sunshine.

Sutherland, one of six first-round co-leaders, had a 68.

"It's a great way to start the year,'' said Sutherland, a non-winner whose last second-place finish was in the 1997 Houston Open. "I would like to putt 17 over. But I played well. I made some putts out there today, too, so I was very pleased with how I played.''

Bob Tway, Cliff Kresge, and K.J. Choi carded 66s -- matching the second-best rounds of the event. Willis's 64 Sunday was the tournament low.

Tway and Geoff Ogilvy, another first-round leader, were at 275, with Kresge, Choi, Greg Kraft and Mark Wiebe at 276. Wiebe became the sixth consecutive third-round leader to fail to hold on in Tucson.

Willis got the last of his five birdies on the 12th hole and played the last five holes knowing Sutherland had birdied No. 16 to go 14-under.

The pressure appeared to get to the rookie on No. 17, when he missed a 4-foot birdie opportunity because he hit it too hard, and again when his approach shot to the 465-yard final hole landed 55 feet short of the flag on the uphill green.

But Willis, who said after the third round that playing on the manicured courses of the big tour is a privilege in itself, arrived at the green with a smile on his face. He stroked the first putt firmly, sending it up just past the hole, and drilled the winner into the center of the cup.

"I just wanted to keep my head down and stroke it, and all of a sudden my caddie is hugging me, and I'm like, 'Where am I? What's happening? Is this Oz?' " he said.

Willis plans to marry his fiancee, Jennifer Johnson, in Hawaii this week -- working the wedding around his participation in the Sony Open there, and then return to Arizona for the Phoenix Open from Jan. 25-28.

"It's going to take the National Guard to get me off this tour,'' he said.

Wiebe began with a two-shot lead on Willis and four shots on Sutherland, Glen Hnatiuk, Mark Hensby and Andrew Magee.

The lead varied from four strokes to one, but Wiebe held it until he bogeyed No. 12, the second of three straight bogeys that knocked him to 13-under.

Wiebe went first on No. 11 and drove down the right side of the fairway, leaving himself a difficult approach shot.

Willis boomed his drive 25 yards farther, eliciting a "that's nice'' from Wiebe. "Thanks,'' said Willis, who went on to par the hole while Wiebe bogeyed by three-putting from 35 feet after his second shot stopped in the fringe.

Willis went to 15-under and took his first lead since the middle of the third round when he birdied No. 12, an uphill par-3. His tee shot landed 11 feet from the hole and pin high, and Willis made it.

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