HUALALAI, Hawaii >> Duffy Waldorf was so excited about his winning putt at Saturday’s Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai, he might have exaggerated just a bit how far that birdie was at the closing hole.

When the golf ball found the cup, it gave Waldorf a final-round 66 and a 54-hole total of 18-under 198 to edge Tom Lehman (66—199) by one.

“Had to be at least 30 feet,” Waldorf said of the putt minutes after securing his second Champions Tour victory. He won four times on the PGA Tour. “It was obviously 20 feet longer than I wanted. Probably 30, could have been a touch more, maybe 35.”

By the time the UCLA product gets to Kona Airport it will be 50 feet or more. It was actually more like 20, 25 feet tops. But who’s counting? All Lehman knows is he had about a 15-footer to force a playoff at the jam-packed 18th hole and rolled it straight and true about 6 inches shy of the cup to settle for par.

“The greens here are so straight, so many putts are so straight, it’s easy to get line conscious,” a disappointed Lehman explained of his own birdie try. “And that’s what happened on 18 when you just worry about the line so much that you don’t hit it. So disappointing, but a good week for me.”

It was a good week for all the seniors who qualified for this elite field of 43 golfers. But the happiest of the entire group has to be Waldorf, who has always enjoyed playing in Hawaii on Maui and particularly on Oahu at the Sony Open, where he received numerous sponsor’s exemptions into his late 40s.

“It’s a foreign feeling to me,” Waldorf said of starting the year with a win. “It’s never happened before and just exciting. It’s exciting for me to win in Hawaii. I’ve always loved playing here ever since I was a kid. And to get a win, after playing in all those Sony Opens and a few Kapalua events, it’s exciting to get a win at Hualalai.”

It certainly wasn’t easy for the 53-year-old from Los Angeles. Despite going bogey-free for all three rounds, Waldorf found himself trailing Lehman by two with six to go.

Lehman birdied the 12th to go to 17 under with Waldorf and Davis Love III tied for second just two shots off the pace. But Lehman wouldn’t birdie again and Love, who got as low as 16 under on the back nine, went bogey, par, par over his final three holes to end up in third at 15-under 201 for the event.

Meanwhile, Waldorf chipped away at Lehman’s lead with a birdie at 13 to get within one, another birdie at 16 to draw even and then the birdie at the last to get only his second win among the 50-and-older set.

“On 13, I had about 105 yards and hit a wedge to 7 feet for a nice shot,” Waldorf said. “And at 16, I hit a 9-iron from 142 to about 15 feet. I was a little between clubs, 124. I ended up hitting a sand wedge. I was going to hit a pitching wedge and probably should have, but looking back, I think it was the right club.”

Hard to argue with that logic. Lehman certainly had the easier putt of the two, but much like he did all three rounds, he squeezed past a lot of holes on his birdie tries, but didn’t get enough of them to fall.

“Well, I’m happy for Duffy,” Lehman said. “He played very well. He made really good putts when he had to make them. You know, I hit a really good putt on 16 today that lipped out. You start thinking about all the putts early in the round. I hit great putts that just burned the edges. And the same thing happened on a chip at 16 in the second round. I can’t complain. Just more motivation to just keep working harder.”