Pre-tournament notebook: SAS Championship

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• When R.W. Eaks won the most recent Champions Tour event, the Greater Hickory Classic at Rock Barn, it continued his great play at the event. In his last three starts at the tournament, Eaks has won twice and lost in a playoff the other year. He's 48-under par for those three starts. He now has four wins in his last 32 starts on the Champions Tour after beginning his career 0 for 89.

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Hale Irwin is 73rd on the Tour in Putting this season.

• Hale Irwin can probably point to his putter for his struggles this year. In his storied career on the Champions Tour, Irwin has led the circuit in Putting four times and has finished among the Top-10 eight times. This year, he's 73rd on the Tour.

• The defending champ of this week's SAS Championship is Mark Wiebe. Despite winning that event in 2007, Wiebe is a candidate for Rookie of the Year honors this year since he competed in only four Champions Tour tournaments in 2007. He's got tough competition for that honor, though, with Bernhard Langer, Jeff Sluman and John Cook also having standout rookie campaigns.

• Larry Mize, the 1987 Masters Tournament winner, will make his Champions Tour debut at the SAS Championship. A four-time winner on the PGA TOUR, Mize turns 50 on Wednesday, Sept. 23. In addition to Mize, eight other former PGA TOUR tournament winners will make their first starts at the SAS Championship. Joining Mize will be Joey Sindelar, Phil Blackmar, John Cook, Gary Hallberg, Dan Forsman, Sandy Lyle, Ken Green and Mike Hulbert.

• With only four events remaining before the Charles Schwab Cup Championship, there are a number of players battling for a berth in the season-ending event (top-30 money winners after the AT&T Championship) in Sonoma, Calif. A year ago, the 30th spot went to Jim Thorpe, with $605,038. Two years ago Mark McNulty claimed the last spot into the Sonoma event, with $614,459. A total of 26 players have already exceeded the $600,000 figure this year, but Thorpe, last year's Schwab Cup Championship winner, currently sits at No. 40 on the money list, $119,476 short of what would likely be a return trip for the season-ending event.

• Bernhard Langer, the Champions Tour's leading money winner, will make his first start on Tour in six weeks when he competes at the SAS Championship. Langer currently leads the money race, with $1,650,923, a mere $2,102 ahead of Jay Haas. However, Langer trails Haas by 139 points in the Charles Schwab Cup race. Langer most recently competed in Europe, where he tied for 58th at the Mercedes-Benz Championship on the European Tour, a week after winning the Casa Serena Open in the Czech Republic on the European Seniors Tour.

• After ranking as the 10th-most-difficult layout on the Champions Tour in 2006, Prestonwood Country Club slid to 23rd in terms of difficulty, with a scoring average of 71.318, a year ago. That was more than a stroke and a half lower than in 2006. There is no surprise what the easiest hole was in 2007. The par-5 17th ranked as the 14th-easiest hole on the Champions Tour, with a scoring average of 4.451. The hole yielded 130 birdies and six eagles during the event.