Vaughn Taylor is headed home to the Masters with his first PGA Tour victory in more than a decade, and he can’t believe it.
Neither can Phil Mickelson.
Taylor, who hasn’t had a full PGA Tour card for the last the three years, ran off four straight birdies on the back nine to close with a 7-under 65, and he won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on Sunday when Mickelson missed a 5-foot putt on the final hole.
‘‘It’s been a long time,’’ Taylor said. “I didn’t think it was going to happen. I worked so hard. I kept getting knocked down, knocked down. I'm just at a loss for words.’’
A week of spectacular weather on the Monterey Peninsula ended with a stunning conclusion for both players.
Taylor is No. 447 in the world and won his first PGA Tour event against the top players. His previous two victories were the Reno-Tahoe Open (2004 and 2005), which is held opposite a World Golf Championship. He just returned from South America and a pair of Web.com Tour events.
And then there was Mickelson, going for his 43d career PGA Tour victory and his record-tying fifth at Pebble Beach, staked to a two-shot lead with no one near his pedigree within five shots of the lead.
Mickelson, however, struggled and could not keep making enough par putts to hold off Taylor.
He still managed a rally of his own. Trailing by one shot on the final hole, Mickelson was in perfect position to force a playoff. His hybrid landed in front of the green, 60 feet short of the pin, and his pitch came up 5 feet short. But the birdie putt that would have forced a playoff hit the left edge of the cup and spun out. Mickelson bent over with his hand on his knee.
‘‘It never crossed my mind that one on 18 wouldn’t go in,’’ he said.
Champions — Bernhard Langer won the Chubb Classic for his 26th PGA Champions Tour title in Naples, Fla., closing with a 1-over 73 for a three-stroke victory.
Seven strokes ahead after opening with rounds of 62 and 66, the 58-year-old German star finished at 15-under 201.
Fred Coupleshad a 66 on the day to finish second.
Langer completed his sixth wire-to-wire triumph. He’s second on the 50-and-over tour’s victory list, behind Hale Irwin (45) andLee Trevino (29).
Langer was 1 over through 10 before making his first birdie on 11. Couples drew within two with a birdie on 17 and Langer’s bogey on 15.
But Couples bogeyed 18, and Langer birdied 17 to push the margin to back four. On 18, Langer put his second shot in the water and then salvaged a bogey.
European — Charl Schwartzelraced away from the field to win the European Tour’s Tshwane Open in Pretoria, South Africa, by eight shots, closing with a 7-under 63 to finish 16 under par.
Schwartzel, who held a one-shot lead heading into the final round, had seven birdies and an eagle to cruise to victory and his second tour title this season. The former Masters champion finished with four birdies in his last seven holes for his runaway victory.
Denmark’s Jeff Winther closed with a 64 for second place, at 8 under. Anthony Michael was third at 6 under and Justin Walters, Richard Sterne, and Dean Burmester tied for fourth another shot back.
Ladies European — Top-ranked Lydia Ko won the New Zealand Women’s Open for the third time in four years, despite a magnitude 5.7 earthquake rattling the Christchurch area during the round.
Ko closed with a 2-under 70 for a two-stroke victory. The 18-year-old South Korean-born New Zealander finished at 10-under 206.
England’s Felicity Johnson, South Korean amateur Hye Jin Choi, and Denmark’s Nanna Koerstz Madsen tied for second.
The event was sanctioned by the Ladies European Tour and Australian Ladies PGA.
