By Matt Murnane
Australian golf went back in time on Sunday - 20 years, to be precise - with Peter Senior winning the Australian Masters for a third time, but the 56-year-old is adamant the game in this county is still moving forward.
Senior predicted what the causal sporting fan might say about his shock victory at Huntingdale Golf Club this week, "the old bastard has won again", but he insists his triumph should be viewed simply as the right man, on the right course, at the right time, rather than any over-arching comment about the number of younger players capable of taking the baton from him.
Senior said there are many examples of older players bucking the accepted global trend that golf is now a young man's game - lead by the "new world order" of 20-somethings Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and Rory McIlroy.
"There's always going to be something like this that is going happen in this game," said Senior, pointing out how close Tom Watson came to winning the 2009 British Open as a 59-year-old (he had a putt to win the tournament), and also that Davis Love III won an event on the world's biggest Tour this year at age 51.
Peter Senior of Australia poses with the trophy after winning the 2015 Australian Masters at Huntingdale.Credit: Getty Images
"I just had a good week," he said.
"You go on course the next two weeks [at the Australian Open and PGA Championship] and watch the young guys play."
This was not the strongest Masters field Senior has ever played in - and he has played in all but two them - but it did include one of the world's best players right now, Adam Scott, and maybe the top future prospect in the world, American Bryson DeChambeau.
Both players finished in the top five but not even they could negotiate Huntingdale Golf Club as well as Senior, and so if there is one thing this victory proves that is indisputable - it's that experience, cagey course management and precision (more than powerful) ball-striking counts on Sundays.
Peter Senior makes a birdie putt during the final round.Credit: Michael Dodge
"The biggest part of my win this week is that Huntingdale is not an overly-long course," he said.
"The next two weeks at the Australian Golf Club and Royal Pines, they are longer so I think I will have my work cut out for me.
"But Huntingdale is right down my alley."
Senior called the victory "something special" but he has done this before.
He won the Australian Open in 2012 and the PGA Championship in 2010, giving him the extraordinary honour of achieving
Australia's "Triple Crown" once before he was 50, and now again after his 50th birthday.
While not Senior even thinks he will win one of the next event in Sydney, it's still worth pointing out that another surprise victory at this year's Open or any other that he plays will mean that the veteran will have effectively Triple Crown-ed, The Triple Crown.
This was his 34th professional win and it goes without saying that he is the oldest winner of a Triple Crown event ever.
The Queenslander has earned $US 5.3 million playing on the U.S-based "Champions Tour" since deciding to reinvigorate his career in 2010.
"I think I was 42 or 43, I stopped playing overseas, just played in Australia," he said.
"I wanted to see my kids growing up. And then when I was 49.... I said to June, my wife, I wouldn't mind going and having one year on the Champions Tour.
"So I practised hard for 12 months and fortunately I got through and next year will be my seventh year.
"I'm only going to play one more year and that will be me done."
Senior has played every Australian Masters at Huntingdale in the period between 1979 and 2008, so it was always possible that he could be contending if the golfing gods smiled upon him.
Certainly there was a feeling that Sunday was his day - beginning with an extraordinary second shot on the 436-metre par four 10th that settled to within a foot.
On the par four 13th, he used his long putter to land a crucial birdie that just dropped in the cup but on another day might have easily stayed on the edge.
And then later in the round when it looked like he might have let the tournament slip, runner-up Andrew Evans bogeyed the 17th hole to make his equation on the 18th hole for easier.
Needing only a par to win, Senior was able to produce a trademark bunker shot and then a clutch eight-foot putt to win his first Masters since 1995.
There were emotional scenes when Senior and his son Mitchell, his caddie, came together on the 18th green and Senior said he felt the crowd support all day.
"Yeah, nearly every hole on the back nine everyone was cheering me - even my poor shots," he said.
"It was just great. I have not had that sort of following for a very, very long time.
"I had a lot of friends out there today following me. They were crying when I finished."