Champions Tour Insider: An alphabetical guide to 2009

text size

Sep. 2, 2009
By Vartan Kupelian, PGATOUR.COM Contributor

This week's Walmart First Tee Classic is the 19th of 25 tournaments on the Champions Tour schedule. With the 2009 campaign in the home stretch, it's a good time for a comprehensive review -- A to Z -- of what has transpired since the first event in Hawaii.

MORE INSIDERS: PGA TOUR | European Tour | Fantasy: Deutsche Bank Championship

'A' through 'Z' on the Champions Tour in 2009

	...is for the All-Around Statistical Category This ranking (click here to view) combines stats from scoring, putting, eagles made, birdies made, sand saves, greens in regulation, driving distance and driving accuracy and identifies who is best. This year, it's been Bernhard Langer wire-to-wire.
	...is for the Boss of the Moss Loren Roberts is putting together another banner season. Putting gets most of the attention when the subject is Roberts' play but the rest of his game holds its own against anybody. With last week's victory at the Boeing Classic, his victory total this year has reached three.
	...is for Canterbury Golf Club, where Michael Allen, in his Champions Tour debut, won the Senior PGA Championship. Allen joined Arnold Palmer as the only golfers ever to win the Senior PGA in their first Champions Tour start.
	...is for Dave Stockton, recognized far and wide as one of the golf's great putters and most knowledgeable men when it comes to putting and the short game. An example: Stockton's recent work with Michelle Wie prepared the teen star for an unbeaten performance (3-0-1) in the United States decisive triumph over Europe in the Solheim Cup.
	...is for the eagle that Keith Fergus made at the Cap Cana Championship. Fergus holed a sand wedge from 95 yards on the 17th hole of the final round to pave the way to his second Champions Tour victory (he would win his third title less than two months later).
	...is for four, as in the number of victories this season by Langer, the most on the Champions Tour. Langer won the Mitsubishi Electric Championship, Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf (with Tom Lehman), Triton Financial and 3M Championship.
	...is for going low -- and for Mike Goodes, who shot 57 in a casual round at Greensboro Country Club in June. How did he manage to beat par by 14 strokes? Click here to read his story.
	...is for Hale Irwin, the Champions Tour's all-time money leader with more than $25 million in earnings. The World Golf Hall of Fame member has won 45 times on the 50-and-over tour, including seven majors.
	...is for Iowa and the Hawkeye, Lonnie Nielsen, who won the Dick's Sporting Goods Open in Endicott, N.Y. A sizzling 9-under 63 in the final round at En-Joie gave Nielsen, who spent years as a club professional in the Western New York area, the victory.
	...is for -- what else? -- Jay Haas.The multiple winner for four straight years and two-time winner of the Charles Schwab Cup is still looking for his first win of 2009. The fact that Haas hasn't won is one of the surprises of the year and will be an ongoing story through the remaining events.
	...is for Kaleidescope and the captivating images we'll see this week on the Monterey Peninsula during the Walmart First Tee Open. Where to begin? Seventeen Mile Drive, Carmel, the waves crashing on the seawall along the 18th hole at Pebble and the view that steals hearts - Stillwater Cove. Spectacular.
	...is for the Lone Cypress Tree. This week's event is at Pebble Beach. 'L' couldn't be for anything else.
	...is for major championships.The Senior PGA Championship (won by Michael Allen), Senior Open Championship (won by Loren Roberts), U.S. Senior Open (won by Fred Funk), JELD-WEN Tradition (won by Mike Reid) and, finally, the Constellation Senior Players Championship, which will be held in October.
	...is for niblick, the equivalent of the modern 9-iron. It's the club that helped Nick Price earn his long-awaited breakthrough victory at the Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am. It was a sequence of shots at the par-5 14th hole which made the difference, with Price's 9-iron approach to eight feet leading to the decisive birdie.
	...is for out of bounds. Greg Norman was coasting at the Senior PGA Championship when he arrived at Canterbury Golf Club's 16th hole. His third shot out of the rough on the par 5 sailed over the green into a wooded area. OB. And, eventually, a snowman. Norman made the cut and finished T49.
	...is for power and Purtzer. Once again, Tom Purtzer tops the driving distance statistics. This year, he is averaging 304.7 yards off the tee and is on his way to claiming his fifth driving distance title since 2003.
	...is for Dana Quigley, who has never encountered a golf course he couldn't play again and again and again -- on the same day. The Tour's ironman holds the record for playing in the most consecutive events that he was eligible for on the Champions Tour (278).
	...is for Radar -- as in Mike 'Radar' Reid, who earned his first victory in four years at the '09 JELD-WEN Tradition. It will make life much easier for Reid on the Champions Tour, who was not fully exempt before his second major win. He's known as Radar for his accuracy off the tee.
	...is for scrambling, the art of getting up-and-down from anywhere and everywhere. Fred Funk is No. 1 in the statistical category, converting 137 times in 199 chances, a percentage of 68.84.
	...is for trivia. Name the Champions Tour event which is perfect for this column. It starts with 'A' and ends with 'Z'. It's the Allianz Championship.
	...is for undaunted. Dan Forsman began the final round of the AT&T Champions Classic five strokes behind leader Joey Sindelar. All Forsman did is close with a 6-under-par 66 to get into a playoff against Don Pooley and went on to win his first Champions Tour title in a dozen starts.
	...is for the vowels in Isao Aoki's name. There are eight letters in his name and six are vowels.
	...is for the Walmart First Tee Open, the unique event which pairs Champions Tours players with juniors representing The First Tee. Clint Eastwood will serve as chairman of the event and former President George H. W. Bush and Arnold Palmer have been named honorary co-chairs.
	...is for eXtraordinary, as in Tom Watson at Turnberry. At age 59, the five-time British Open champ played golf at a level nobody imagined capable from a man his age before losing in a playoff to Stewart Cink. What Watson achieved -- he was a 10-foot par putt away from winning -- will go down as one of the great stories in golf history.
	...is for the youth clinic, sponsored by Charles Schwab, at the Boeing Classic where Fred Funk was host, with help from his son, Taylor. The Youth Clinic is a tradition of tournament week and gives kids a chance to learn some of the game's basics and hit balls on the range alongside Champions Tour players.
	...is for the only golfer on the Champions Tour with three of them in his name: FuZZy Zoeller.