HARRIS MAKES CRUCIAL PUTTS, WINS GOLF CHAMPIONS TITLE

The $3,000 that he received Sunday afternoon for winning the Minnesota Golf Champions, presented by Stanton Group, was nice, but what John Harris was really happy about was the series of crucial putts he made on the back nine to secure his victory.

Having started the final round one stroke behind Kane Hanson, Harris shot a 2-under-par 70 at Bearpath Golf & Country Club. That gave him a three-day total of 208, which was good enough for a two-stroke victory over Hanson, who closed with a 73 for an aggregate of 210.

It was the third victory for Harris in the Golf Champions tournament, and he also had a second-place finish in 1975, the first year that the tournament was played (it was called the Minnesota Masters then). In that inaugural tournament, he lost a playoff to Ron Benson, and it wasn't until 1991 that he got his first victory. He won again in 1999.

Craig Brischke, the head pro at Tanners Brook, was the only player besides Harris to shoot three scores under par this year. His final round of 71 put him at 211, which tied him for third with Hiawatha's Chris Borgen (soon to be working at Hastings CC), who shot a 72. 

Adam Wynia, who was in a five-way tie for the lead after a 67 on Friday and then fell back with a 76 in Saturday's hostile conditions (steady rain and increasing cold as the round progressed) came back to post the low score on Sunday, a 69. That gave him a 212 and solo possession of fifth place. 

Hanson, a long-hitting, second-year professional from Detroit Lakes, matched Harris' 34 on the front nine Sunday and retained his one-stroke advantage, at 9 under par. But three consecutive bogeys at Nos. 10, 11 and 12, followed by a double bogey at the par-3 13th transformed that lead into a four-stroke deficit.

Borgen, who was the third member of the final group, also bogeyed the 10th, and he bogeyed the 13th, as well, which dropped him to minus 4.

Meanwhile, Harris was making all pars through the first four holes on the back side. But the one on 13 was a bit tricky. His 7-iron tee shot at the 179-yard hole ballooned on him. It ended up short and right, leaving him with a pitch from about 80 feet, which he hit to about 4 1/2 feet.

He made that one, and then rescued a par at No. 14 by knocking in a 25-footer, after pushing his tee shot into the water hazard to the right of the fairway and punching out 80 yards short of the green. And after Hanson and Borgen both trimmed their deficits by a stroke with birdies at the par-5 15th, Harris replied with a birdie of his own at the 16th, thanks to a 20-foot putt, which pretty much sealed his victory.

"Those three putts at 13, 14 and 16 made my weekend," Harris said afterward.

The 55-year-old former four-time State Amateur champion and 1993 U.S. Amateur champ has been playing on the Champions Tour since he turned 50 -- and professional -- in June of 2002. He has won one tournament -- and more than $2.6 million -- on the senior circuit, but has struggled with his game this year, and hasn't really been in contention for a title since finishing fourth in the 3M Championship at the TPC of Twin Cities in Blaine last August.

"So I really haven't had a putt that mattered since Blaine," he noted. "That was a big part of why I wanted to play in here this week (he was also there, in part, because he works for Stanton Group as an insurance executive, and wanted to support the tournament). I wanted to see if I could make those kinds of putts that you have to make to win a tournament. It's a great feeling when you can do it."

Hanson made things interesting at the finish by stiffing a wedge shot at the 17th and making the 3-foot birdie putt, as Harris was making his only bogey of the round. That put Hanson back within two of the lead, and in a position to possibly force a playoff with a birdie at the 18th, if Harris happened to make another bogey. However, both players made par.

The second-place finish earned Hanson $2,000.

"I just left my brain someplace else for a while in the middle of the round," he said of his 5-over-for-four-holes stretch at the start of the back nine. "I got rattled over something that happened on the other par-3 (No. 8, where someone made a noise just as he was hitting a shot), and I let it bother me.

"I learned something because of that, and I also learned a lot from watching John play the last two days. He was just about flawless, and he was really good mentally. He hit a lot of great shots, and if he didn't get a great result, he just stayed patient." 

Harris was able to play in the Golf Champions tournament because the Champions Tour has the week off. He will be back in action with the seniors beginning Friday with the Regions Charity Classic in Birmingham, Ala.

Hanson, 26, a former State Amateur champion who turned professional in 2006 and won the state opens for both Minnesota and North Dakota in '07,  has been playing on the Gateway Tour for the past four months.

There are two parts to the Gateway, the more popular Desert (Arizona) series and the Beach (Florida) series. Hanson has been playing the Desert, both the Winter Series (January/February) and the Spring Series (April/May). Each series costs $10,000 to enter, but he's made over $35,000, and he picked up another $1,200 by selling his spot in last week's Desert Spring tournament (#7), so that he could play at Bearpath and prepare for the local stage of U.S. Open qualifying Monday at The Links at Northfork. 

"That's one of my big goals for this year (to get into the Open)," he said. "Last year, I missed by one shot. I really would like to make it this year, and I didn't want to be coming from four months of desert golf and have the Open qualifying be my first round on one of the courses up here."  

After he plays in the Open qualifying, he will go back to Arizona four a couple of days, then pack his bags again and fly to Port St. Lucie, Fla., to play in the Gateway Spring Championship, which combines the top 50 players from the Desert and the top 20 from the Beach, and will be begin a week from Wednesday.  

"After that (the Open qualifying and the Gateway Championship), I'll play some Dakota Tour events, the Tapemark and try some Monday qualifiers for the Nationwide," Hanson said. "You just play where you can. That's what life is like when you're a mini-tour pro."    

 -Mike Fermoyle