Champions Tour Veteran Grinds Out Better Finish After Dreadful Saturday in Wales

Rob Labritz followed a third-round 86 with a closing 71 at the Senior British Open, experiencing the full gamut of Wales weather.

PORTHCAWL, Wales — In what may be the biggest turnaround in golf this year, Rob Labritz went from the outhouse to, if not the penthouse, at least to a better abode then he was in after shooting a 71 in Sunday’s final round of the Senior British Open at Royal Porthcawl.

With similar winds to Saturday, Mother Nature added rain to the mix, making it even more difficult to a course that had a scoring average of 76.14, the highest in the PGA Tour Champions major following the cut since the 2008 KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship (76.27).

The even-par score was 15 shots better than the 86 he shot in Saturday’s third round and was only the second even-par round, tied with Y.E. Yang for low score Sunday, with half the field finished.

“I played about the same as I did yesterday,” Labritz said after his round of three birdies and three bogeys. “Little more aggressive with the driver since they moved the tees around.”

Club selection off the tee was a big problem Saturday for the former club pro from New York as his caddie, Mark Schoenwald, was questioning some of his selections off the tee, eventually unsettling Labritz.

“I like to hit different clubs off the tees, and he would tell me that that's not the right club, you shouldn't hit that club,” Labritz said. “I'm gonna have a conversation with him about that because it's my choice. If I want to hit a drive, I want to hit 5-iron, it’s my choice. I don't care what it is. But don't put in my brain I shouldn't do it.”

And that’s exactly what he did: have a conversation with his caddie Saturday night and started anew on Sunday.

“It’s a team effort and we weren’t on the same page,” Labritz said.

To be fair, it wasn’t all about the caddie, Labritz admitted he was a bit of a fish out of water, never having experienced the conditions of constant 14 mph winds with gusts of 29 mph from the west and off the Bristol Channel.

After Sunday’s round, Labritz talked about the luck involved in links golf.

A perfect example was a drive he hit on Saturday that found the bunker, 360 yards out on the 18th hole and generally not in his wheelhouse.

On Sunday, he missed that same bunker.

“Avoided some of the bunkers and applied my patience,” Labritz said of the difference between the two rounds. “I always grind.”