Looking back: Seven years of the Charles Schwab Cup

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The Charles Schwab Cup is a season-long competition that began in 2001. Players who finish in the top 10 at Champions Tour events are given points based on the money distribution for each tournament. With every $1,000 they earn, they also receive one Charles Schwab Cup point.

The Champions Tour's five majors, which include this week's Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship, offer double the points. The season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship also awards double points and is limited to the top-30 players in the standings.

In the seven-year history of the Charles Schwab Cup, some of the races have come down to the wire, while others have been won by a landslide.

2001: Allen Doyle

The winner of the inaugural Charles Schwab Cup, Doyle clinched his 216-point win over Bruce Fleisher at the SENIOR TOUR Championship. In a season where he won twice and had 25 top-10 finishes in 34 starts, Doyle was the model of consistency in 2001. When he earned the $1-million tax-deferred annuity, he gave it all to charity. Over 10 years, the total would be divvied up between his alma maters (Norwich University in Vermont and Catholic Memorial High School in West Roxbury, Mass.); Habitat For Humanity, St. Peter's Catholic Church and Literacy Volunteers of America, all in La Grange, Ga.; and 10-year scholarships for children of a police officer or firefighter who died in the World Trade Center attacks. "As soon as I convinced my wife that we were set financially, she was 100 percent behind it," Doyle said. "It just felt like the fair thing to do. We've been fortunate."

2002: Hale Irwin

Irwin, then 57, took home nearly all of the accolades in 2002. He was voted by his peers to be the Player of the Year and shattered his own record for season earnings, taking over $3 million and the overall money title. Irwin also clinched his first Charles Schwab Cup when he earned his fourth title of the year at the Turtle Bay Championship in Hawaii. Irwin, the all-time winningest player on the Champions Tour, won the event in Hawaii and clinched the Charles Schwab Cup despite not playing his best. "I think I was a little off," Irwin said immediately following his fourth win of the year. "More than anything, I'd just tried to do my thing and I wasn't doing it very well. I was sort of hanging on." Only Irwin, however, could just hang on and still take home the season-long prize.

2003: Tom Watson

It was the most lopsided victory in the Charles Schwab Cup race in an up-and-down year for Tom Watson. He won twice that season and had 10 top-10s in 14 starts but also struggled throughout the season as he watched his friend and long-time caddie Bruce Edwards battle Lou Gehrig's disease. Watson managed to focus while on the course, though, and was either first or second in half of his finishes that year. He beat Jim Thorpe by 1,370 points in the season-long Charles Schwab Cup competition and clinched it at the Charles Schwab Cup Championship.

2004: Hale Irwin

How does he do it? Irwin turned 60 during the 2004 season plus suffered from a tender lower back and neck and shoulder pain. Still, Irwin managed to win his second Charles Schwab Cup when he fended off Craig Stadler at the Charles Schwab Cup Championship and won the season-long race by a mere 39 points. The Cup looked like it would be his for most of the season, given he led the standings for 11 weeks during the summer and won twice that year. He slipped up slightly, though, and fell into second place for four weeks before a runner-up finish at the Administaff Small Business Classic gave him the lead for good.

2005: Tom Watson

Watson hoisted his second Charles Schwab Cup trophy in 2005, a year in which he won two times. His first victory came at the Senior British Open, when Watson ended a two-year drought with a win at Royal Aberdeen. The highlight of the season for Watson, however, was the final event. Shooting an 8-under 64, which included a 20-foot birdie putt at the 72nd hole, Watson overtook Jay Haas -- who held a six-stroke lead going into the final day -- at the Charles Schwab Cup Championship. In the process, Watson earned 1,320 points (back then the points were tripled at the Charles Schwab Cup Championship) and vaulted over four players to win the Charles Schwab Cup. Not only did he take home the $1-million annuity, but he also earned $440,000 for winning the final event of the season. That paycheck equaled the largest one in his illustrious, World Golf Hall of Fame-worthy career.

2006: Jay Haas

Hands down, the most thrilling finish in the history Charles Schwab Cup. That is, unless you're Loren Roberts. Roberts, consistently one of the best putters on the PGA TOUR and Championship and a four-time winner that year, stood over a 4 1/2-foot par putt at the Charles Schwab Cup Championship in Sonoma, Calif. Since Haas and Roberts had long since separated themselves from the rest of the pack, it came down to the final putt. If he made it, Roberts would win the Charles Schwab Cup. If he missed, Haas would win by 20 points. Roberts had an uncharacteristic miss and a shocked Haas, who had also won four times that season, got the $1-million annuity. "Charles Schwab is unbelievable to put this out there for us to shoot for, and pretty amazing that it would come down after how many thousands of golf balls have been hit to come down to one shot," Haas said after he won, adding later that he had mixed emotions because of the way he captured the trophy.

2007: Loren Roberts

Thanks to a win at the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship, Loren Roberts took the lead from Jay Haas and went on to capture his first Charles Schwab Cup title. After losing to Haas by just 20 points in 2006, Roberts reversed his luck and the final standings with his 165-point win over Haas in 2007. Roberts became the fifth different player to take home the Charles Schwab Cup but, more importantly, he was able to avenge his loss and shake that monkey off his back. "For me to get up on the last hole in 2006 and have a chance to do it and have probably the best club in my bag fail me, obviously that's something I dealt with in the off-season and part of this year," Roberts, a two-time champion in 2007, said following his win. "It was very satisfying to be able to come down and finish it off this year." In addition to Roberts and Haas, Denis Watson, Brad Bryant and Tom Watson were in the top five.