MasterCard Championship: Second-Round Notebook
By Phil Stambaugh, PGA TOUR Staff
KAUPULEHU-KONA, Hawaii -- On Sunday, Allen Doyle will try to win his 12th Champions Tour title and first since the 2006 U.S. Senior Open. He's now gone 32 events since his last triumph at Prairie Dunes CC in Hutchinson, Kan. Doyle's 5-under 67 Saturday was his 19th consecutive sub-par round at Hualalai dating back to the second round of the 2002 event. His best-ever finish in the MasterCard Championship is a tie for fifth in 2002.
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• Fred Funk's 9-under 63 Saturday was a career-low round on the Champions Tour and was his best 18-hole score since shooting 62 last year on the PGA TOUR in the opening round of the Mayakoba Golf Classic at Riviera Maya-Cancun. Funk's career-best on TOUR is a 61 in the second round of the 1999 B.C. Open.
• Funk shoots for his third career win on the Champions Tour Sunday in his 14th overall start on the circuit. He's also attempting to win in Hawaii for the second consecutive year. Last year at the Turtle Bay Championship on Oahu, Funk waltzed to an all-time record 11-stroke victory on the North Shore.
• Jim Thorpe is in position to win his second consecutive Champions Tour event. He ended the 2007 season with a victory at the Charles Schwab Cup Championship in Sonoma, Calif. Thorpe finished tied for second last year at the MasterCard Championship after winning the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship in 2006. The last player to follow a season-ending win with a victory at the MasterCard Championship was Gil Morgan (1997 Energizer Senior Tour Championship/1998 MasterCard Championship).
• Even though it appears to be a long-hitter's golf course, statistics show that only one winner at Hualalai since 2000 has been ranked among the top-10 in Driving Distance for the week. Through 36 holes this year, Allen Doyle is 13th in Driving Distance (288.8) while Fred Funk ranks tied for 17th (288.3) among the 41 professionals.
• Denis Watson became the first player in 2008 to make a pair of eagles in a round and Jim Thorpe followed with a pair of eagles on his card later in the day. Watson holed a shot from the fairway at the par-4 first hole for an eagle and made a second eagle on the par-5 10th hole. Thorpe also eagled the 10th after recording his first eagle of the day at the par-5 fourth.
• Watson is tied for sixth after 36 holes at the MasterCard Championship, the highest standing among the eight first-time players in this year's event.
• The MasterCard Championship at Hualalai kicks off the 2008 race for the Charles Schwab Cup and a total of 300 points will be awarded to the winner on Sunday. Loren Roberts won last year's Charles Schwab Cup by 165 points over Jay Haas, the 2006 Schwab Cup winner.
• Allen Doyle's 15-under-par 129 total is the highest 36-hole score to lead the MasterCard Championship since Doug Tewell posted the same two-round total in 2004. The last time Doyle was leading going into the final round of a Champions Tour event was when he held a one-stroke advantage over Mark O'Meara and Bobby Wadkins at last year's ACE Group Classic in Naples in February. Doyle's overall record on the Champions Tour when leading/co-leading heading into the final round is 5 for 10.
• In the previous 24 tournaments, the player who has led or been tied for the lead after 36 holes has won the MasterCard Championship 16 times. However, in the last four years, only Hale Irwin (2007) was a Saturday leader who went on to triumph. Fuzzy Zoeller (2004), Dana Quigley (2005) and Loren Roberts (2006) all rallied from three strokes back for victory.
• Mark Wiebe, the 2007 SAS Championship winner, again did not have a three-putt Saturday, extending his streak of holes without a three-putt to 270 in a row.
• With more wind from an opposite direction Saturday, Hualalai played over two strokes harder than Friday (67.537 vs. 69.756). There were 28 rounds below par Saturday compared to 35 Friday. There were 23 scores in the 60s Saturday compared to 31 rounds in the 60s Friday.
• John Jacobs has one-putted 21 of his 36 holes thus far and has averaged just 25.5 putts per round. ... Fred Funk has missed just four fairways and three greens through two rounds. ... Tom Purtzer leads in driving distance, averaging 316.4 per measured drive.
• Sunday's final round gets underway at 10:10 a.m. (HST) with the final grouping going off at 1:10 p.m.
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