E-notes: Haas looking for third consecutive win

text size

Jay Haas will be looking for his third consecutive Champions Tour victory when he tees it up this week at the Bank of America Championship outside of Boston. He'll also be looking to win his second consecutive title in that event. The Bank of America Championship has seen a number of players successfully defend their titles?Don January (1983-84), Chi Chi Rodriguez (1986-87-88), Bob Charles (1989-90), Hale Irwin (1997-98) and Larry Nelson (2000-01).

Haas

One more on Haas: When he won last year in Boston, Haas was coming off a two-week break following his victory at the Principal Charity Classic. Guess what? He's coming off a two-week break this year following a win at the Principal Charity Classic.

He's off to the slowest start of his brilliant Champions Tour career, but a visit to Boston might just be the tonic for Hale Irwin. In 10 starts at the Bank of America Championship, Irwin has won twice, finished second twice and has failed to shoot par-or-better in just one of his 30 rounds.

In the previous 26 events, only eight first-round leaders/co-leaders have gone on to win. A total of 14 second-round leaders/co-leaders have won the tournament, including three of the last five events: Bob Gilder (2002), Allen Doyle (2003) and Mark McNulty (2005).

Jay Haas' victory in last year's event earned him the distinction of winning the same tournament as his uncle, Bob Goalby, who won the tournament in 1981. Goalby, a two-time winner on the Champions Tour, claimed the 1981 Marlboro Classic, played at Marlboro Country Club.

Purtzer

Tom Purtzer and D.A. Weibring are the only two players to finish among the top 10 at Nashawtuc in each of the last four tournaments. In 2004, 2005 and 2007, Purtzer held the 36-hole lead. He tied for second, four strokes behind Craig Stadler in 2004, lost in a playoff to Mark McNulty in 2005 and shot a final-round 73 last year to finish fourth. In 2003, Purtzer tied for fourth. Weibring tied for eighth last year, tied for fourth in 2003 and 2005 and tied for second in 2004 at Nashawtuc.

The Champions Tour field played Nashawtuc in 2007 to a stroke average of 71.648, just a shade higher than the 2005 average of 71.636. The average was 71.575 in 2004. The course ranked 17th among the 30 venues that hosted events in 2007. In 2007 the par-3 13th hole played as the most difficult (3.215), while the par-5 18th was the easiest (4.635). In fact, it was the seventh-easiest finishing hole on the Champions Tour in 2007.

This is one of the most-difficult tournaments on the Champions Tour to go wire to wire for a victory. Bob Gilder holds the distinction of being the only one to do so in the 25-year history of the event when he won in 2002 in a playoff.