Watson wins Senior British Open in a playoff

ABERDEEN, Scotland — Tom Watson made a par on the third playoff hole Sunday to beat Ireland's Des Smyth and win the Senior British Open.

Watson, a five-time British Open champion, won the Senior British for the second time in three years. In 2003, he beat Carl Mason in a playoff at Turnberry.

The 55-year-old Watson joins Gary Player (1988, 1990, 1997), Bob Charles (1989, 1993), Brian Barnes (1995, 1996) and Christy O'Connor Jr. (1999, 2000) as multiple winners of the championship.

Watson won his seventh senior title and first since the 2003 Jeld-Wen Tradition. The victory is his fourth senior major, including the 2001 Senior PGA Championship, the Senior British in 2003 and the Tradition.

Watson, who held a one-shot lead heading into the final round, closed with a 1-under 70, finishing tied with Smyth (67) at 4-under 280.

Greg Norman, making his Champions Tour debut, shot a final-round 68 and finished third at 3 under. Craig Stadler closed with a 72 and was fourth, and Loren Roberts, also playing his first senior event, had a 67 and finished four back.

US BANK CHAMPIONSHIP: At Milwaukee, notorious dawdler Ben Crane, whose slow play irked fellow players at the Booz Allen Classic last month and perturbed his playing partners this week, shot a 1-under 69 in sweltering heat to win the US Bank Championship by four strokes over Scott Verplank.

Chad Campbell (65) finished five shots back in third, and two-time winner Jeff Sluman (68) was fourth at 14 under on a hot, humid final day in which the heat index hovered around 105 degrees.

Crane finished at 20-under 260. He's only the second wire-to-wire winner in Milwaukee and the first at Brown Deer Park, where the tournament's been played for 11 years. Ed Snead did it in 1974 at Tuckaway Country Club.

Crane, whose only other PGA tour win came at the 2003 BellSouth Classic, is the fourth player this year to put his name atop the leaderboard all four rounds of a tournament, joining Phil Mickelson (AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am), Justin Leonard (FedEx St. Jude Classic) and Tiger Woods (British Open).

He pocketed a $684,000 check for the victory.

PLAYERS' CHAMPIONSHIP OF EUROPE: At Alveslohe, Germany, Sweden's Niclas Fasth made a 10-foot birdie putt on the third playoff hole to beat Angel Cabrera and win the Players' Championship of Europe.

Fasth's third European Tour victory came after he birdied three of the last five holes, and Cabrera bogeyed his last, forcing the playoff.