NEWPORT BEACH — With arguably the best final group in the Hoag Classic’s 26-year history, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen and Lee Janzen—each a winner of two U.S. Opens—went to the first tee Sunday at Newport Beach Country Club with one stroke separating them in the final round of the Hoag Classic.

“We talked about that in the locker room: three guys playing together with six U.S Open (titles),” Goosen said.

It did not take long for the fireworks to go off.

Playing aggressively, Goosen and Els both hit driver on the 325-yard par-4, while Janzen laid up with a mid-iron. Goosen hit the best tee shot, his ball finding the left greenside bunker, about 20 yards from the hole.

On his second shot, Goosen splashed the sand with his wedge watched his ball fly upward toward the flagstick.

“It was a tricky bunker shot,” Goosen recalled, saying he had an awkward stance up against the left lip with the ball below his feet. “I had to fly it over the ridge (to get to the green’s upper tier). I figured if I hit a good shot, it would finish five feet past the hole. . . . It just came out hotter than expected.”

Oops, he thought to himself.

As he followed the flight of his shot, the next sound Goosen heard was his ball clanking against the bottom of the flagstick—before disappearing into the cup, without ever hitting the putting surface.

Slam-dunk!

Goosen celebrated the eagle 2 by flipping his sand wedge into the air as the greenside gallery erupted.

The surprise hole-out was only one shot, but it provided the impetus for Goosen’s fast start on the way to a superb 8-under 63 and four-shot victory in the Hoag Classic over closest pursuer K.J. Choi.

Goosen shot 68-67-63 for a 54-hole total of 15-under to win his second PGA Tour Champions title in 61 events. Choi shot a final-round 66 to finish second at 11-under, with Janzen (69) and Stephen Ames (67) tied for fourth at 9-under. Els stumbled to a 2-over 73 and finished seventh.

The opening-hole eagle vaulted Goosen past Els, the second-round leader and a fellow South African World Golf Hall of Famer, and he never relinquished the lead.

“That was very, very lucky,” Goosen said of his hole-out on No. 1. “Whenever you hit a flag, it can go anywhere. It could have come back off the green. That hole treated me well this week, especially the first four or five holes.”

Goosen followed up his eagle with birdies on the par-4 second and par-5 third, marking the second straight day that he started a round by playing the first four holes 4-under par.

“When you get off to a start like that, you know today is your day,” said Goosen, who earned a $300,000 first-place check and moved up to third in the season-long Schwab Cup points race. “Anybody could (have) come to life and go low, so I just kept grinding away.”

By the time he made the turn after a front-nine 30, Goosen had a four-shot lead. Choi never got closer than three shots on the back nine. Goosen had a clean card until a three-putt bogey on the par-4 11th, but that was the only blemish during a day in which he posted the lowest final-round score by a Hoag Classic winner since Hale Irwin shot 62 to win in 1998.

“I have won pretty much around the world, but this was the first time I have won on the West Coast,” said Goosen, a seven-time winner on the PGA Tour, including the 2001 and 2004 U.S. Opens. “It was a fun day and a fun week.”

And in retrospect, it might have been won on an early dunk.