AT&T Champions Classic: Second-Round Notebook  PGA TOUR Staff ORLANDO, Fla. -- Hale Irwin finds himself in a familiar position heading into Sunday's final round. As the second-round leader of the AT&T Champions Classic, Irwin will try to claim a Champions Tour victory for the 46th time in his career and for the second time in 2007. He won the season-opening MasterCard Championship by five strokes in Hawaii. In his Champions Tour career, Irwin has won 33 of 48 events when he has led or been tied for the lead going into the final round.  Hale Irwin (Grayson/WireImage)
• Should Irwin prevail on Sunday, it would be his eighth victory in the State of California, including six on the Champions Tour. • Loren Roberts increased his record-setting total for consecutive rounds par/better to 34 when he posted a 2-under-par 70 on Saturday. Roberts, who broke Larry Nelson's mark of 32 yesterday, is T4. • In the 17 previous AT&T Champions Classics, the Saturday leader/co-leaders have gone on to win the event only six times -- John Brodie (1991), Joe Inman (1998, 2000), Jim Colbert (2001), Gil Morgan (2004) and Tom Kite (2006). • It was a happy 55th birthday for David Eger on Saturday. Eger shot a 5-under-par 67 on Saturday and is T9 heading into Sunday's final round. • The pairing of the day on Saturday was Tom Kite, Gil Morgan and Tom Purtzer. The trio is all former winners of the tournament. • Can Hale Irwin recapture the magic he had on Sunday, March 18th, 2001 on Sunday? It was on that day that Irwin won his 30th career victory. With a course-record 65 on Sunday, Irwin won the Siebel Classic near San Jose by five strokes over Tom Watson and Allen Doyle and became the first player to reach 30 career victories on the Champions Tour, doing so in just five and a half seasons. • Los Angeles native John Jacobs could post his second straight top-10 finish for the first time since he opened the 2004 season with back-to-back top-10 finishes at the MasterCard Championship and the Royal Caribbean Golf Classic. He finished T9 last week at the Toshiba Classic. • The field scoring average jumped from 71.227 on Friday (lowest scoring average since the tournament moved here in 2001) to 72.093 on Saturday. A total of 18 players posted rounds in the 60s, down from 23 on Friday and there were 35 sub-par rounds, down from 46. • After 36 holes, the most difficult hole has been No. 7 (par 3) with a 3.273 scoring average. It has yielded just nine birdies. The easiest hole is No. 9 (par 5) with a 4.233 scoring average. There have been 15 eagles and 87 birdies through 36 holes. • Bobby Wadkins, Gil Morgan, Morris Hatalsky, Tom Purtzer, Bruce Summerhays and Wayne Levi have all posted two rounds in the 60s. • Gil Morgan, a three-time winner of this event, is T4 heading into Sunday's final round and trails Hale Irwin by just two strokes. • Scott Simpson pushed his consecutive rounds without a three putt to 139 holes before he three-putted No. 6 on Saturday. • Andy Bean and Tim Simpson had the low rounds on Saturday, 6-under-par 66s. • Massy Kuramoto needed just 20 putts on Saturday on his way to a 3-under-par 69 and has the fewest putts through 36 holes -- 46. He is T19. Copyright 2007 PGATOUR.com. All rights reserved. |
