Stadler (left), winner of the 2014 Waste Management Phoenix Open on the PGA Tour and four events on the Web.com Tour, hasn’t competed on the PGA Tour since 2015 due to a stress fracture in his left hand. He played in the Digital Ally Open on the Web.com Tour last summer, but withdrew after one completed round.

“It’s a long, stupid story, but in the long run I ended up getting cut (having surgery) last August,” Stadler said. “I still wasn’t sure that was going to fix anything, but it took six, eight months. I was kind of able to swing January, February of this year. It really rapidly got better the last few months. I’ve been pretty much been pain-free for the last couple months.”

At the Rust-Oleum, Stadler went 71-69-71-68 for a 9-under-par 279 total, which left the 38-year-old eight strokes behind champion Chase Wright. The Kent Denver graduate made an eagle, five birdies and three bogeys in the final round. Another Colorado product, Wyndham Clark, also tied for 22nd place (73-68-67-71).

Stadler is on a major medical extension from the PGA Tour, and when he returns to that circuit, he’ll have 26 events left on that extension, needing to earn $717,890 in those events to keep his exempt status on the PGA Tour.

Stadler won the Colorado Open in 2002 and the CGA Match Play in 1999 and ’02.

CoBank Colorado Senior Open Champ Notches Top-10 on PGA Tour Champions: John Riegger parlayed his victory earlier this month in the CoBank Colorado Senior Open into a ninth-place finish on PGA Tour Champions, in the Principal Charity Classic in Des Moines, Iowa.

Riegger, who won a PGA Tour Champions event in 2013, now owns eight top-10 showings on that circuit, but managed his first since 2016.
In Des Moines, he shot rounds of 69-67 for an 8-under-par 136 in the weather-shortened event. Tom Lehman won with a 131 total after weather washed out Sunday’s action.

Another Top-10 on Symetra Tour for Ex-Buff Lee: Former University of Colorado golfer Esther Lee finished a professional-best seventh on Sunday and notched her third top-10 since May 1 on the Symetra Tour.

Lee carded rounds of 70-69-69 and posted an 8-under-par 208 total in the Four Winds Invitational, which put her three strokes behind winner Maia Schechter in South Bend, Ind.

Since the beginning of May, Lee has finished 10th, eighth and seventh on the Symetra Tour, in addition to missing two cuts.

But No. 369 was the charm.

Jobe, who lived in Colorado from 1970 to ’99 before moving to Texas, finally scored a breakthrough on Sunday when he captured the title at the PGA Tour Champions’ Principal Charity Classic in Des Moines, Iowa.

Prior to the win, Jobe had certainly come close on several occasions, including at The 2005 International at Castle Pines, where he held the 54-hole lead but finished one point behind winner Retief Goosen. Also among his four PGA Tour runner-ups was a playoff loss at the 2005 BellSouth.

Then on PGA Tour Champions over the last two years, he’s placed third three times, including at the 2016 Senior PGA Championship.

But on Sunday, he finally claimed a big championship trophy in the U.S., winning professionally for the first time since 1998.

A week after making a putter switch, the 51-year-old shot rounds of 67-66-69 for a 14-under-par 202 total, good for a one-stroke victory over former UCLA roommate Scott McCarron and Kevin Sutherland, who made two eagles in his final six holes, including a 2 on the par-4 18th. Bernhard Langer, coming off back-to-back wins in senior majors, placed fourth at 204.

Winning “is huge,” Jobe said on Golf Channel. “I’ve been knocking on that door a long time. … To finally get a win means a lot.

Later, he added, “It’s hard. You’re out here to win, and I haven’t done as good of a job as I would have liked. This is nice. It’s a little bit of a relief.”

In a four-birdie, one-bogey final round on a windy Sunday, Jobe birdied the par-5 15th from 3 feet to pull ahead, and parred out for the win. The accompanying payday — $262,500 — vaulted him from 22nd to sixth on the 2017 money list, with $556,978.

In Colorado, Jobe was an outstanding player in the 1980s and ’90s, winning three CGA Match Plays, one CGA Stroke Play, one CGA Junior Amateur, one CGA Junior Match Play, and the 1992 Colorado Open. He went on to win a dozen international championships in the ’90s, mostly in Asia.

For scores from the Principal Charity Classic, CLICK HERE.

Denver’s Love Rides Third-Round 61 to 8th-Place Finish in Canada: Denver resident James Love used a 9-under-par 61 in Saturday’s third round in Victoria, British Columbia, to propel him to an eighth-place finish Sunday in the Bayview Place Cardtronics Open on PGA Tour Canada.

Love — who shot a 59 in a Web.com Tour Q-school event in St. George, Utah last fall — carded rounds of 68-69-61-72 for a 10-under-par 270 total. He ended up six strokes behind winner Max Rottluff.