Surprised Torrance grabs Fota opportunity in play-off

Who writes these scripts? Sam Torrance, perhaps. Yesterday, on the 18th green at Fota Island - as grand an amphitheatre as is to be found on a golf course - the moustached Scot took the starring role in yet another drama to snatch the AIB Irish Seniors Open, rolling in a 15-foot eagle putt on the second tie hole to claim back-to-back victories on the European Seniors Tour. Torrance's win brought with it a sense of déjà vu.

Back in 1995 he won the Irish Open on the full tour, holing an eagle putt at the second hole of sudden-death to beat his Ryder Cup colleague Howard Clark.

On holing the winning putt here, Torrance raised clenched fists to the heavens as the large gallery acclaimed him.

On finishing his round, Torrance had joined the crowds massed in front of the clubhouse in glorious sunshine and had just ordered a glass of Guinness in the belief Chile's Guillermo Encina was poised to savour success. He wasn't to wet his throat. In the last three-ball, Encina's drive down the 18th was perfectly positioned in the middle of the fairway but he proceeded to put his short-iron approach into the water, resulting in a bogey six for a 72 and a six-under-par 207.

Torrance, Jerry Bruner and Stewart Ginn, who had eagled his 72nd hole, had all finished on that mark and, so, the four piled into golf carts and returned to the 18th.

The 18th, a par 5 of 479 yards, is a superb risk-and-reward hole, ideal for play-offs. And so it proved, as, incredibly, Encina repeated his indiscretion by again putting his approach into the pond. Ginn also bowed out, unable to match the birdies of Torrance and Bruner.

On returning to the tee for a third time inside half an hour, Torrance hit his best drive of all. He was left with a downhill approach of 150 yards to the flag, and hit a wedge to 15 feet.

Bruner too found the green but missed his eagle putt and so left the stage to the modern-day Slammin' Sam. He rolled in the putt with his trusty broomhandle to add the title to the Italian Seniors he won a fortnight ago.

In between signing autographs, Torrance remarked: "This is fantastic. Every win I've had in Ireland has been enjoyable."

Yet, for much of the day, it had seemed the title was destined to be claimed by Carl Mason, who had established a cushion on his pursuers as he stood on the 10th tee. It all went horribly wrong. On this downhill par 5, another classic risk-and-reward hole, he took a triple-bogey eight after driving out of bounds and compounding that error by putting the approach with his second ball into the water. Suddenly, from seemingly coasting, he was in a four-way tie with Torrance, Encina and Bobby Lincoln.

When Mason followed by double-bogeying the 11th, he had lost control and was eventually to finish a shot outside the play-off.

There was tough luck too for Lincoln. He suffered a one-shot penalty on the 10th because his caddie dropped a towel onto his ball on the green, and the South African too was to finish a shot outside a play-off place.

In the end, the day belonged to Torrance, who finished with a 69 that included three birdies in his opening four holes.

"My game plan was just to go out as fast as I could," said Torrance. Which is what he did, holing from 12 feet on the first; putting in from off the front edge on the second, and tapping in for birdie on the fourth. But he thought his chance had gone when three-putting the 17th and then only managing a par on the 18th in regulation. He felt he had fallen short, but then Encina - with the title in reach - put his approach to the last into the water.

Denis O'Sullivan finished as leading Irishman (after shooting 68 for 210, three-under-par) - admirable considering he was battling a knee cartilage injury.

"I'm pleased enough, considering I'm a crock," quipped the Corkman, who undergoes surgery in Cork University Hospital today but hopes to resume tournament play as quickly as next week's Wales Senior Open.

"My surgeon tells me I've a better than two-out-of-three chance of playing," he added.

In many ways, O'Sullivan could reflect on what might have been. He finished just three strokes outside the play-off and, while three bogeys in his last four holes on Saturday ultimately proved costly, when the effects of an anaesthetic wore off, he responded superbly to finish tied-11th.