Final-round notebook – John Deere Classic
* Jay Williamson, with a final-round score of 69, earned and accepted a spot in this week’s British Open. Since Williamson and Adamonis (70) tied for second place, the players’ final-round scores were used to determine who would get the invitation. * This will be the fourth major championship of Williamson’s career. He competed in the U.S. Open in 2003, 2001 and 1999, with his best finish being a T20 in 2003.
* Kenny Perry defeated Brad Adamonis and Jay Williamson on the first playoff hole at the John Deere Classic to collect his 12th PGA Tour title and third in the past seven weeks. Perry and Tiger Woods are the only players with three or more victories in the 2008 season.
* Perry entered the week trailing Phil Mickelson by seven points on the 2008 FedExCup points list. With his win and the 4,500 points, he moved into the No. 2 spot on the points list and will be the first player other than Mickelson or Woods to sit in the top-two since J.B. Holmes was second following the Northern Trust Open in February.
* Sunday’s playoff marked the eighth playoff of the 2008 PGA Tour season and the sixth in John Deere Classic history. The last playoff at this event came in 2004 when Mark Hensby defeated John E. Morgan on the second playoff hole to win his only Tour title.
* The only other three-man playoff this year came at the Stanford St. Jude Championship, where Justin Leonard defeated Trevor Immelman and Robert Allenby on the second playoff hole.
* Perry’s playoff win Sunday brings his all-time PGA Tour playoff record to 2-1. He defeated Hale Irwin at the 1991 Memorial Tournament and lost to Mark Brooks at the 1996 PGA Championship.
* Kenny Perry becomes the first player age 45 and over since Julius Boros in 1967 to win three Tournaments in a single year on the PGA Tour. Boros was 47 years, 3 months and 8 days old when he won the 1967 Buick Open Invitational, his third win of that season.
* Nine of the first 22 winners on the PGA Tour this year were foreign-born players. Starting with Phil Mickelson’s win at the Crowne Plaza Invitational in May, there have now been eight consecutive American-born winners on Tour.
* Kenny Perry became just the fourth player to hold/share the third-round lead and go on to victory since the John Deere Classic moved to the TPC Deere Run in 2000 and the first to do so since John * Senden held the lead in 2006 on the way to his win. David Gossett (2001) and J.P. Hayes (2002) are the other two players to do so.
* After zero past champions managed to finish inside the top 10 at the John Deere Classic in 2007,
J.P. Hayes was the only one to do so in 2008 (T9).
* First-round leader Ken Duke found his Thursday form on Sunday with a round of 65. Duke struggled with rounds of 72-73 on Friday and Saturday and finally ended a 34-hole birdie drought Sunday with a birdie on the par-4 fourth.
* Williamson’s runner-up finish Sunday marked the second of his career. He lost in a playoff to Hunter Mahan at the 2007 Travelers Championship.
* Sponsor’s exemption Philip Francis made the most of his second start at the John Deere Classic with a T34 finish after carding rounds of 67-71-64-75—277. Francis just finished his freshman year as a member of the victorious UCLA Bruins golf team.
* The threesome of players tied for the lead entering the final round marked the first time there have been multiple players atop a 54-hole leaderboard on the PGA Tour since five players were tied entering the final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March.
* For the 33rd consecutive year, the winning score at the John Deere Classic was in double digits. The winning score has failed to reach double digits only three times in the event’s 38-year history:
* In the John Deere Classic Birdies for Charity program, there were 255 birdies made Sunday, bringing the total for the week to 1,714 birdies.
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