SUNRIVER — Fred Funk is going to miss Crosswater Club.

On a Sunday when seven different golfers at some point held or shared the lead, Funk — the guy who has played Crosswater the best over four years — finally rose to the top of the 2010 Jeld-Wen Tradition.

After starting the day at 9 under par and in a three-way tie for second place, Funk shot a 3-under-par 69 for the final round to win The Tradition at 12 under, a single stroke over Michael Allen and Chien Soon Lu.

It should be no surprise that the 54-year-old Funk was able to outlast the field here.

Funk won the 2008 Tradition and has combined to shoot 47 under par in the four years this Champions Tour major championship has been played at Crosswater, whose four-year run as host of The Tradition has expired.

“I really like this golf course, and I really like the area, too,” Funk said, tired after grinding out the win in unseasonably cool conditions Sunday. “I really like the tournament, and obviously it’s been real good to me. I’ve played this golf course really well. So I have personal feelings how I am going to miss this place.”

Unlike Funk’s win here in 2008, when he cruised to a three-stroke victory, the final round Sunday was a struggle.

How tough was it? In addition to Funk, the list of players who held at least a share of the lead at one time or another Sunday included third-round leader Tom Lehman, John Cook, Craig Stadler, Tommy Armour III, and eventual runners-up Allen and Lu.

But nobody could pull away from the field. The largest lead Sunday belonged to Lehman after he birdied the par-5 sixth hole.

But the 1996 British Open champion promptly lost his two-stroke lead when he double-bogeyed the par-3 No. 7.

The seventh hole offered the first hint that Lehman’s game would falter after he started the day with a two-stroke lead. He ended the round shooting a 1-over 73 to finish in a tie for fourth place with Mark Calcavecchia.

“I was just trying to get myself back in the game and forget about what (the other contenders were) doing,” said a disappointed Leh- man after his round. “I was just hoping to get myself back to 11 or 12 under. I just didn’t hit good enough shots.”

Bernhard Langer, who started the day tied with Funk at 9 under, also struggled Sunday. The German star, who was trying to become just the second golfer to win three consecutive major championships on pro golf’s 50-and-older tour, shot a 73.

“Today I just didn’t get anything going,” Langer said afterward. “I had three bad lip-outs. If they had dropped. I would have been within one shot. But I’m sure other guys had lip-outs, too.”

With two big stars spinning their wheels, the door for Funk and others swung open.

Cook, who lost a playoff for the championship here last year, surged to the top of the leaderboard with four early birdies. But he bogeyed No. 7. Funk, playing with Cook, birdied No. 7 to inch closer to Lehman.

But even Funk wobbled a bit with a three-putt on the par-4 ninth hole that dropped him back from 12 under to a group at 11 under.

“The problem with all that is I was just thinking, ‘I just gave one shot back and I just put that many more guys back in it,’ ” Funk recounted. “And I’m just waiting for somebody to come out of that pack. And I wasn’t doing it, and nobody in our group was doing it.”

Stadler, who started the day six shots off the lead and was playing well ahead of the lead groups, made four consecutive birdies on the back side to get to 11 under before bogeys on Nos. 16, 17 and 18 dropped him from contention.

Allen, who won the 2009 Senior PGA Championship but plays sparingly on the Champions Tour, took the outright lead at 12 under with a birdie on the par-4 15th hole.

He made seven birdies Sunday to go from a tie for 14th into the temporary lead. On the 16th hole, he hit into a fairway bunker on his second shot and was forced to pitch short of the green with his third.

He eventually missed a 15-foot putt for par and settled for bogey to drop back to 11 under.

“It was a catastrophe,” said Allen, 51, of his bogey. “I hit a great putt and I thought I made the putt for par, but it just stayed on the high side. No love.”

But Allen was not disappointed with his final-round performance.

“I did do what I wanted to do, which is get out and get 3 or 4 under on the front nine,” Allen said. “I knew once I got to 10 (under), at least I had a chance.”

Funk, who was at 11 under at the time, said he saw the scores before missing a 6-foot birdie putt on the 15th hole. And at that point, he said, he realized that he still had a chance.

“I really didn’t think coming down the stretch that 12 (under par) was going to be the winning number coming down the back nine,” Funk said. “But I saw the board off (No.) 15 and realized if I could just make one or two birdies coming in …

“I was pretty shocked at the fact that nobody was taking off. I thought Tom or Bernhard or somebody would go out there and get to 13 or 14 or whatever. But it didn’t (happen). I guess it’s a testament about how good the golf course played and how tough it is.”

Funk’s birdie would come on the 16th, which yielded just 11 birdies during the entire final round. The Takoma Park, Md., native knocked a sand wedge to 12 feet and curled in the putt to get to 12 under.

His only real challenge from there came from Lu on the 18th hole. Funk chunked an 8-iron and left his ball 35 feet short of the pin on 18. And Lu, who was one shot back after a birdie on 17, rested on the fringe.

Funk lagged to 5 feet, then Lu skimmed the edge of the cup with a chip that would have tied the tournament. The Taiwanese golfer fell to his knees after the shot went wide.

“I thought he made that chip,” Funk confessed. “From my angle it looked like it was dead center.

“Chien Lu is a great player. That is the first time I played with him, and he is really solid.”

In front of what was easily the largest final-round Tradition crowd in the tournament’s four years at Crosswater, Funk sent home the 5-footer to win.

In a way, Funk was an unlikely winner. Though he has dominated Crosswater like no other golfer, he had not been playing particularly well before The Tradition as the three-time Champions Tour major winner recovered from November knee-replacement surgery.

He had just three top-10 finishes this season and had yet to win, something he has done every year since he joined the Champions Tour in 2006.

But this week he felt better, he said. And it helped him win the $392,000 first prize at The Tradition.

“I’m getting to the point where I can concentrate on my golf swing instead of my knee,” Funk said. “I knew it was coming around, but I didn’t know it was going to turn into a win right away. But it did.”

Funk, who hit 54 of 56 fairways this week, seemed almost puzzled after his win Sunday.

How, with so many top golfers in the hunt, he asked, did none of them pull away at the end?

“There was a little bit of luck involved, and the fact that the one birdie coming down the back nine was enough — I’m pretty shocked at that,” he said. “But I’m taking it. I’m not going to give it back to anybody else.”

Traditional champs

Fred Funk joins an exclusive group of players who have won The Tradition more than one time. Jack Nicklaus won the event four times (1990, 1991, 1995 and 1996) and Gil Morgan won twice (1997 and 1998).