Provo • Samuel Saunders’ name already was written on the $20,000 check as he stood over a birdie putt that he needed to make, just to extend Sunday’s playoff with BYU golfer Kelton Hirsch in the Siegfried & Jensen Utah Open.
Saunders could have missed the putt, tossed the cardboard check into the back seat and started driving, content with the low-pro honor and the money that went with it. But he desperately wanted to keep playing. “That's why I play,” he said later, “to have a moment like that.”
Saunders matched Hirsch's birdie, won the playoff with a par on the second extra hole and added a crystal trophy to his haul from Riverside Country Club.