CHICAGO (Ticker) -- Hale Irwin couldn't have played a better final round. He couldn't have played a worse playoff.

Irwin shot a 7-under-par 65 on Sunday to force a playoff with Bob Gilder, then hit a handful of terrible shots on the first extra hole to give away the SBC Senior Open.

A three-time winner of this event and the best player on the Senior PGA Tour, Irwin began the day six shots behind Gilder. He tamed the Port course at Harborside International, which was hosting this event for the first time, and took the lead into the clubhouse at 12-under 204.

Gilder pulled even with a five-foot birdie at the short par-4 16th. He had a chance to win in regulation but lipped out an eight-footer at 18, completing a 1-under 71 and putting him in his first Senior Tour playoff.

The par-4 18th bends right and has water along its left side just before the green. Both players landed their drives in a fairway bunker, then played out across the fairway, finding a cart path while trying to avoid the water.

Irwin's second shot hit the cart path and bounded up a hill into high rough beneath a bush. Gilder was slightly better off, landing in thick rough on a slope below the cart path.

Irwin tried to hack out onto the fairway, but hit the ball just two feet. Now clear of the bush, his punch-out hit the cart path and skipped across the fairway into the water. Clearly disgusted, he took a drop before finally dropping his approach -- his sixth shot -- onto the green.

With the better lie, Gilder played it safe, punching out of the low rough onto the green. He two-putted from 50 feet for a rare tournament-winning bogey.

The 2001 Senior Tour Rookie of the Year, Gilder collected $217,500 for his third career tour win and first since the season-ending Senior Tour Championship. He eclipsed $1 million in earnings for 2002.

One trend overpowered another for Irwin. He has had great success in the Chicagoland area, winning a U.S. Open and Western Open on the PGA Tour in addition to his titles in this event in 1995, 1998 and 1999. But he dropped to 0-4 in Senior Tour playoffs, one of the strangest stats on the circuit.

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