Turtle Bay Championship: Second-round notebook  Champions Tour Media Official KAHUKU, Hawaii -- Fred Funk's 36-hole total of 15-under-par 129 is the lowest 36-hole total since this event moved to The Palmer Course at Turtle Bay in 2001. The previous low was 12-under-par 132 by Loren Roberts in 2006. The all-time 36-hole record in the tournament is 13-under-par 127 by Jim Colbert in 1991 when the tournament was held at the Kaanapali GC. • A total of 240 points in the season-long Charles Schwab Cup race will be awarded to the winner on Sunday. Hale Irwin is the current leader with 290 points following his victory in last week's MasterCard Championship at Hualalai.  Loren Roberts is on a red-number roll. (Ronen Zilberman/AP)
• Defending champion Loren Roberts kept his impressive string of sub-par rounds going, running his total to 19 in succession, dating back to a final-round 76 at the JELD-WEN Tradition last August. It was also Roberts' fifth straight round in the 60s this year. • Funk is the only player in the 78-man field to have played bogey-free golf through 36 holes. • Should he prevail on Sunday in this year's first full-field event, it would be Funk's second win in his last three starts on the Champions Tour. He won the AT&T Championship last October in San Antonio, the final full-field event of 2006. He finished T28 last week at the MasterCard Championship at Hualalai. • For the second week in succession, Tom Kite finds himself trying to track down Saturday's second-round leader. A week ago, despite rounds of 67-64 the first two days, he trailed Hale Irwin by three strokes. This week he has posted rounds of 67-66, but trails Fred Funk by four strokes. Kite finished T2 last week, five strokes behind Irwin. • Should sponsor exemption Kiyoshi Murota prevail on Sunday, he would become the first sponsor exemption to win a Champions Tour event since Christy O'Connor, Jr., won the 1999 State Farm Senior Classic. A top-10 finish would earn him a berth in the next Champions Tour event -- the Allianz Championship in Boca Raton, Fla. • With more benign conditions on Saturday, the scoring average dropped from 72.615 on Friday to 70.064. There were 32 rounds in the 60s compared to 13 rounds on Friday and 54 players finished with rounds below par compared to 25 on Friday. • In the previous 20 events, the player leading or tied for the lead after two rounds has gone on to win 11 times, including seven of the last 10 years. Jose Maria Canizares, the 36-hole leader in 2000, is the only front-runner to finish worse than fourth in the event. Canizares finished T11 in 2000 after posting a final-round 76. Bruce Summerhays, the 1997 second-round leader, finished T2, while Tom Kite, the 2003 leader, finished second to Irwin. • Gary Player did it again. One week after bettering his age twice in the MasterCard Championship at Hualalai, Player matched his age with a 1-under-par 71 on Saturday. It was the 14th time in his career the 71-year-old Player has matched or bettered his age. Six of those times he has bettered his age. • The day's biggest moves were turned in by Andy Bean (33 spots) and Eduardo Romero (30 spots). Bean followed his 75 on Friday with a 7-under-par 65 on Saturday, while Romero improved nine strokes, shooting a 6-under-par 66 after opening with a 75. • Vicente Fernandez shared honors with Fred Funk for the day's low round, an 8-under-par 64. It was his lowest round since shooting a 63 at the 2005 Blue Angels Classic. • Denis Watson had his low round on the Champions Tour, fashioning a 7-under-par 65 on Saturday and is T4 heading into Sunday's final round. • Sunday's forecast calls for mostly cloudy and breezy conditions with showers likely, mainly in the afternoon. Wind speeds are expected to range from 10-15 mph with higher gusts. Copyright 2007 PGATOUR.com. All rights reserved. |
PGATOUR.com is part of the Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network