Roger Chapman is Pure Michigan. Seven weeks after claiming the Senior PGA Championship in Benton Harbor, Chapman surged from four strokes back with a final-round 66 to claim the U.S. Senior Open at Indianwood Golf & Country Club by two strokes over a quartet of major championship winners on either the PGA TOUR or the Champions Tour. Chapman took the lead for good with a birdie at No. 8 just after Bernhard Langer, the 54-hole leader, made bogey at No. 7. Langer had held a four-stroke advantage at the start of the day but got off to a rough start, making double-bogey at the par-4 2nd hole after an errant drive and a skulled bunker shot. Chapman increased his lead to two strokes midway through the final round after a 10-foot birdie putt at No. 14. However, his lead was briefly cut to one when Chapman made bogey at No. 16, 20 minutes after Tom Lehman had two-putted for birdie at the par-5 15th to get to 8-under for the tournament. Any chance his pursuers had was short lived when Chapman responded a career shot on the par-3 17th, rifling a 5-iron to within six inches of the hole for a kick-in birdie that moved his margin back to two strokes for good.
• Chapman becomes the eighth player to win the U.S. Senior Open in his first appearance, joining Roberto DeVicenzo (1980), Arnold Palmer (1981), Dale Douglass (1986), Lee Trevino (1990), Larry Laoretti (1992), Don Pooley (2002) and Peter Jacobsen (2004).
• Chapman claimed his second victory on the Champions Tour in his 21st career start on the circuit and joinsMichael Allen as the second multiple winner on the Champions Tour in 2012.
• Chapman becomes the third foreign-born player to win the U.S. Senior Open in the last five years and the seventh overall. Here's a list of the other foreign-born U.S. Senior Open champions:
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• Chapman becomes the first player since Bernhard Langer in 2010 to win two majors in a season on the Champions Tour and the fourth to win both the Senior PGA Championship and the U.S. Senior Open in the same year, joining Gary Player (1987), Jack Nicklaus (1991) and Hale Irwin (1998).
• Chapman becomes the first male English USGA champion since Tony Jacklin claimed the U.S. Open Championship at Hazeltine Golf Club in 1970.
• Chapman becomes the fifth player to earn his first two victories on the Champions Tour in majors:
Arnold Palmer, 1980 PGA Seniors Championship, 1981 U.S. Senior Open
Jack Nicklaus, 1990 Tradition at Desert Mountain, 1990 Mazda SENIOR PLAYERS Championship
Peter Jacobsen, 2004 U.S. Senior Open, 2005 Ford Senior Players Championship
Mike Reid, 2005 Senior PGA Championship, 2009 JELD-WEN Tradition
Arnold Palmer, 1980 PGA Seniors Championship, 1981 U.S. Senior Open
Jack Nicklaus, 1990 Tradition at Desert Mountain, 1990 Mazda SENIOR PLAYERS Championship
Peter Jacobsen, 2004 U.S. Senior Open, 2005 Ford Senior Players Championship
Mike Reid, 2005 Senior PGA Championship, 2009 JELD-WEN Tradition
• Chapman equals the third biggest comeback in the final round in U.S. Senior Open history:
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• Chapman posted four rounds in the 60s and he became just the sixth player in U.S. Senior Open history to record four straight sub-70 scores. Here's a list of the other five players who have posted four straight sub-70 scores:
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• Chapman's victory earned him a check for $500,000, the largest amount on the Champions Tour, as well as 1,000 points in the season-long Charles Schwab Cup race. He now has 1,756 total points and is in second place in the season-long race. Tom Lehman and Bernhard Langer both earned 355 points after finishing T2 this week. After 15 official events in 2012, Lehman, the 2011 Schwab Cup winner, leads with 1,877 points and Langer is now third with 1,470 points.
• Chapman's final-round 66 was the lowest score by a U.S. Senior Open winner since 2009 when Fred Funk carded a final-round 65 at Crooked Stick in Carmel, Ind.
• Chapman's win earns him a berth in the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club near Philadelphia.
Miscellaneous Notes:
• This year marked the first time in five years that the winner of the U.S. Senior Open did not come from the final group. After 23 consecutive winners from the final grouping, the last two Champions Tour events have been won by players coming from outside the last pairing on Sunday.
• Bernhard Langer has now finished T2 in the last two majors he has played (T2-2012 Regions Tradition) on the Champions Tour and has been among the top 10 in his last five senior majors.
• Tom Lehman has now finished first or second in each of the last three majors on the 2012 Champions Tour. After finishing T29 at the Senior PGA Championship, Lehman successfully defended his Regions Tradition title and then finished second at the Constellation SENIOR PLAYERS Championship.
• Olin Browne finished T36 in defense of his title.
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• The most difficult hole for the week at Indianwood was the par-4 12th hole, playing to a stroke average of 4.482. It now ranks as the second most difficult hole on the Champions Tour, topped only by the par-4 15th hole at TPC Tampa Bay (4.524). This week, No. 12 yielded just 36 birdies but also produced 156 bogeys, 40 double-bogeys and four others.
• There were 19 sub-par scores today versus 23 sub-par scores in the third round on Saturday.
