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Coceres holds off Love to win PGA Classic
( 2001-10-22 10:28 ) (7 )

Jose Coceres had to overcome an erratic front nine, a late downpour and an uncharacteristically shaky putter at the 18th to eventually win the 3.4 million-dollars PGA Classic on Sunday.

Coceres, who held a three-stroke lead at the start of the day, closed out with a two-putt for a one-shot win over Davis Love III.

The Argentine carded a 4-under-par 68 and held off Love with a 72-hole total of 23-under 265, which was enough to win for the second time on the Tour this season.

The win also catapulted him from 56th to 33rd on the money list with nearly 1.5 million-dollars after he collected the 612,000-dollars first prize, which he said he would give to his mother, who is celebrating Mother's Day in Argentina.

"I think that's the best gift I could've given her," Coceres, who inched closer to a Tour Championship berth, said through an interpreter. "If this isn't the best one, then she's going to have to pick another one."

Coceres, 38, grew up in northern Argentina, sharing a two-room house with 10 siblings. He did not own clubs until he was 18 when he won a caddy tournament and bought the set he had borrowed.

"Anybody with money can have a teacher next to you and clubs," said Coceres. "But for us, we were a very humble family. And we had to win the money so that we could have bread every day, so that we could survive."

Love, who lost his father in a plane crash 13 years ago, recently had a disc problem in his neck, but the fifth-ranked player in the world kept pressure on Coceres with a 66 to finish second for the third time this season.

"I am never happy with it," said Love, who won at Pebble Beach in February. "I came down here to play to win. It is a step forward for me towards the goal of trying to win one before the end of the year."

Jerry Smith tied David Peoples for third at 20-under 268 with lefthander Steve Flesch fifth at 269. Vijay Singh of Fiji, David Toms and Sweden's Jesper Parnevik were among seven players at 270, two shots better than world No.1 Tiger Woods.

Coceres became the ninth player to win twice on the PGA Tour this season. He won at Hilton Head in April.

"It was very important for me to demonstrate that not only winning one tournament by accident, but now I demonstrated that I could win two and maybe why not three?" said Coceres, who held off Billy Mayfair in a playoff at Hilton Head.

But before he finally won the Classic it had seemed in doubt on the front nine when he played the first eight holes in even par, allowing Love to tie him for the lead at 19-under and seven others to get within two shots.

Coceres said he just wanted "to concentrate on playing well and not really look at the score".

"But on the seventh hole I sort of let go and looked at the score and saw that they were all near me and they were all behind me by one shot, so I really got it going," he said.

Coceros stepped up by sinking birdie putts within 10 feet at nine, 10 and 11. Love dropped off by two shots when he bogeyed the ninth.

"Nine and 10 kind of did me in," Love said. "I lost three shots to him right there."

Coceres added a birdie at the 14th and led Love by two when expected rain drenched the Magnolia Golf Course. The leaders were forced to wait nearly an hour before playing their second shots at the par-4.

"It was a pretty incredible amount of rain in a short period of time, but the fairway dried right back up," Love said. "We didn't have to go far to find a dry spot."

Coceres needed only a par to lock up the win, but he left a birdie putt six feet short before Love sank an 18-footer to get within a shot.

"It was exciting for just a minute," said Love, who played with Coceres over the final two rounds. "That is the way he has been playing. He missed one putt, which you figured he would make. He maybe missed one in two days."

Coceres calmly sank the six-footer, then showed off his towel, which wished all the mothers in Argentina, especially his own, a happy Mother's Day.

"I really wanted to make two putts so I could show my towel," he said.