PEABODY, Mass. – Kenny Perry is one of those rare talents that can make golf, at times, appear to be a very easy game. His swing is a bit unorthodox – he draws it back inside and pauses before re-routing, leaving nearly enough time for a viewer at home to run to the fridge. Once he reaches impact, though, know this: few golfers anywhere strike a ball any purer.

To Perry, 56, there is no bigger tournament than his national championship, be it a U.S. Open or U.S. Senior Open. Sunday at Salem Country Club he collected his second U.S. Senior title (and fourth Champions Tour major) with a very Perry-like ballstriking performance. His clinical, bogey-free, 2-under 68 was enough to first overtake, then hold off Kirk Triplett (71) by two strokes.

Perry’s winning total of 16-under 264 broke a U.S. Senior Open 72-hole scoring record (267) that he had shared with Hale Irwin. He also became the first champion to play a bogey-free final round since Bernhard Langer at Sahalee in 2010.

“Kenny Perry,” said Brad Faxon during Sunday’s Fox telecast, “is making this look like a walk in the park.”

Triplett’s score of 266 was the best 72-hole total in the event ever posted by a non-winner. Not that it took any sting out of losing, for this one meant a lot to him. Triplett had been atop the board all week, ever since his sizzling opening round of 8-under 62, but he struggled mightily on his front nine (3-over 38) Sunday as Perry pulled away.

“I didn’t have the game to do it today,” Triplett said. “I was really fighting myself more than anything else.”

It didn’t help that Perry, who has a considerable edge in power over Triplett, kept pounding it well past him off the tee, giving him much shorter looks into the greens. With Salem set up as tough as it played all week, with many holes cut atop knobs on the undulating Donald Ross greens and players contending with steady winds, going in with shorter clubs proved a huge advantage.

Triplett rallied to make things interesting down the stretch, making birdies at 10, 14 and 16 to slice Perry’s lead to two shots with two holes to play.

But Perry simply proved too steady, finishing with two pars, and now he has his hands on a second U.S. Senior Open trophy after having won the first one four years ago in Omaha.

“To shoot four days 4 under (average) is really pretty spectacular,” said Tom Lehman, who shot 69 and tied for fourth. “But that’s Kenny Perry. That’s the kind of player he’s always been. When he gets going, he really gets going.”

And at Salem, Perry really got going. He changed caddies two week’s ago. Russ Cochran’s son, Ryan, is on the bag. He also put a new putter in his bag, an Argolf Pendragon black mallet Wednesday evening, just before his opening round. He felt he wasn’t getting the ball to the hole enough with the putter he’d been using and liked the weight and balance of his new toy.

“I almost felt like a kid again,” he said.

He missed two short birdie looks (11 and 14) on Sunday, and that frustrated him, but for the most part, he was knocking putts down all week. None was any bigger than a 25-footer to save par at the rugged, 225-yard 15th hole, where he’d short-sided himself short and left. There was no logical option other than to play out well to the right of the hole location. Perry, armed with a three-shot lead, basically was playing for bogey. And then he ran in the par putt.

“That putt won me the tournament, by far,” Perry said. “Poured it right in there. … That gave me the confidence to get it done the last three holes.”

Added Triplett, “That’s a championship putt right there. That’s awesome. Just makes him feel good, right? I’m still not really thinking I’m beating the guy, but it makes him feel like I’m not beating him.”

Perry started the final round at 14 under par, one shot behind Triplett, who’d opened with 62 Thursday and had been sensational for three days. It was a two-player race, with the next closest competitor (Brandt Jobe) starting Sunday six shots behind Triplett. Perry and Triplett would be the lone players finishing double-digits below par.

Perry said the round very much felt like a match against Triplett, and with one Francis D. Ouimet Memorial Trophy already sitting on the mantle at home in Kentucky, he believed he had an edge. He did. He warmed up great and came out confident from his very first tee shot, making birdie at the first.

“My swing was better today than the other three days by far, in my opinion,” said Perry, who hit 15 greens in regulation despite swirling winds and difficult hole locations. “The way it felt, the way the ball was coming off the club face … I knew, when I hit that 5-iron on No. 2 (a par 5 converted to a long par 4) from 215 yards or whatever, and it looked like it almost went in the hole, I knew it was game on. I knew my irons were going to be good, and I knew my driver was going to be good. To me, it was just a matter of, is the putter going to work?”

It did. This time last summer, Perry didn’t even want to play golf. His knee was filled with fluid, he was playing lousy, he hadn’t won since 2015 and when he withdrew from the U.S. Senior Open at Scioto, he’d had enough. “I quit,” he said.

Perry has won 20 tournaments on the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions since turning 40. With plenty of money in the bank, grown kids, and six grandchildren running around home in Kentucky, he questioned why he would even want to come back.

“I guess I just had more to prove,” he said, staring at the winner’s silver cup in front of him. “I’m still good enough to compete out there, be good enough out there. To me, I just wasn’t focused. I was so out of touch with golf. I was just mad.”

Sunday in New England, not all that far from Pleasant Valley in Sutton, where Perry won the second of his 14 PGA Tour titles some 23 years earlier, the joy was back, and a big trophy was back in his hands. It’s go-time again.

“To have the USGA title, a two-time USGA U.S. Senior Open champ, it’s as high as it gets for me on my resume,” he said. “Pretty special.”