{"id":25301,"date":"2025-10-19T22:58:42","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T02:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2025\/10\/19\/justin-leonard-defeats-ernie-els-to-win-pga-tour-champions-stop\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T22:58:42","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T02:58:42","slug":"justin-leonard-defeats-ernie-els-to-win-pga-tour-champions-stop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2025\/10\/19\/justin-leonard-defeats-ernie-els-to-win-pga-tour-champions-stop\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Leonard defeats Ernie Els to win PGA Tour Champions Stop"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>RICHMOND, Va. &#8212; Justin Leonard persevered through his putts on a windy Sunday and watched him reap big rewards by winning birdie-par-eagle and finishing with a 4-under 68 for a one-stroke victory over Ernie Els at the Dominion Energy Charity Classic.<\/p>\n<p>Leonard won his second PGA Tour Champions this year and moved into the top 10 after the first Charles Schwab Cup playoff event.<\/p>\n<p>The top 54 will advance to the second postseason event in Arkansas next week.<\/p>\n<p>Els took control on the back nine of Virginia Country Club&#8217;s James River Course and appeared to be steady with birdies on the reachable par-4 15th and par-5 16th.<\/p>\n<p>However, on the 17th hole, Leonard made a bogey. After birdieing the 16th, Leonard pulled his hybrid 4-iron to about 20 feet and held the downhill eagle putt to post at 12 under, 204.<\/p>\n<p>Els couldn&#8217;t make a 10-foot birdie putt on the final hole that would have determined a playoff. He scored a 72 and shared second place with Thomas Bjorn (68).<\/p>\n<p>Bernhard Langer, a 68-year-old German who has won the PGA Tour Champions every year since he turned 50, was within two shots of the lead before a long three-putt bogey ended his hopes. He fired 72 shots and finished with a back three, aiming for his first Champions League win of the year.<\/p>\n<p>Scott Parrell shot a 71 to tie for 21st place, moving up three spots to 53rd and advancing to next week&#8217;s Simmons Bank Championship. David Brunsdon was eliminated.<\/p>\n<p>The top 36 finishers from next week onwards will advance to the season finale, the Charles Schwab Cup Championship.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RICHMOND, Va. &#8212; Justin Leonard persevered through his putts on a windy Sunday and watched him reap big rewards by winning birdie-par-eagle and finishing with a 4-under 68 for a one-stroke victory over Ernie Els at the Dominion Energy Charity Classic. Leonard won his second PGA Tour Champions this year and moved into the top [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[17],"class_list":{"0":"post-25301","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}