PORTLAND – No matter what, Shawn Warren said, the putt wasn’t going to be short.

Faced with a 30-footer to win the 86th Maine Open Friday, the 19-year-old amateur from Windham wasn’t going to risk having yet another putt stop just inches shy of the cup. So, putting uphill from the front of an 18th hole green that sloped slightly right to left, Warren put a charge into his Marshall University golf ball.

The ball skidded across the soggy Riverside Golf Course green and over the hole, caromed off the back lip of the cup and into the air a couple of inches, then dropped in, giving him a birdie and making Warren the first amateur to win the event since Steve Robbins defeated Lanny Wadkins in 1971.

Warren beat Todd Westfall, a Cleveland Golf Tour pro from Clendenon, W. Va., by one stroke in a special British Open-style four hole playoff. Westfall’s putt to tie from about 18 feet rolled just left of the hole.

“I’m very, very excited,” said Warren, a two-time Maine Junior champion in 2000 and 2001. “If you could picture the perfect situation for me to win a golf tournament, with every single one of my friends around and all my family here, hooked up in a playoff like that. That’s something I’ve been waiting for for a long time.”

Three inches of overnight rainfall and more showers forecast for Friday forced organizers to call off the final 18 holes of the 54-hole tournament and decide the championship with a playoff between the co-leaders, who both shot 9-under 135 over the first two rounds.

Warren, who leaves for his sophomore year at Marshall next Wednesday, had another 30-foot birdie putt stop just shy of the cup on the playoff-opening hole, the par 3 15th (the front and back nine at Riverside were reversed for the tournament).

It looked like it might cost him after Westfall, who also went to Marshall, drained a birdie from about five feet at the par 4 16th. Warren drove the green on the 314-yard par 4 17th, however, then two-putted for birdie.

“I wasn’t really feeling any pressure (at the 17th tee),” Warren said. “If I was down two with one hole left, that’s when you’ve really got to start pressing, but I still had two holes left.”

Warren pulled back into a tie when Westfall’s birdie bid from about 15 feet rolled just shy.

“The putt I hit could have just as easily gone in,” Westfall said. “It kind of teetered towards the hole.”

Warren’s chances of winning at 18 teetered on a tee shot on the 393-yard final hole that landed near a line of trees in the rough to the left about 170 yards shy of the hole. Westfall, meanwhile, struck a near perfect tee shot about 290 yards to the center of the fairway.

“I was trying to turn it over, it’s a pretty hard shot down there and a I ended up just getting really quick with it,” Warren said. “It really was dead in the rough there. Not the place you want to be on 18.”

Fortunately for Warren, he had a good opening amidst the trees and was able to get himself out of trouble with a six iron.

“I just had to keep it under one limb and, other than that, just hit the ball solid and it should find it’s way onto the green,” Westfall said. “From there, you’re just trying to knock it onto the green and make him make birdie.”

Westfall, who called tournament organizers at the last minute Wednesday morning requesting a tee time after missing the cut in a Cleveland Tour event, watched his chances for birdie fade as his approach shot landed behind the hole, then rolled down the incline about 25 feet.

“It was 98 yards to the hole and I was trying to fly it about 105. I think I threw it about 103. I didn’t anticipate that much backspin,” Westfall said. “I guess the soft conditions were conducive to a little more spin. I hit a good putt. I read it going straight and it ended up going a little left.”

Westfall still walked away with the winning pro’s share, $6,500, before returning to the Cleveland Tour for a tournament in Lakeville, MA. Sunday.