Notes: Langer vying for third Player of the Year honor

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Aug. 23, 2010
By PGA TOUR staff

The Champions Tour visits TPC Snoqualmie Ridge in Snoqualmie, Wash. for the Boeing Classic. The tournament is the 18th of 26 Charles Schwab Cup events. The purse is $1.9 million with the winner earning $285,000 and 285 Charles Schwab Cup points. Last year, Loren Roberts overtook Mark O'Meara with birdies on the final two holes to win.

LAST WEEK

Fred Funk posted 12-under 276 for a one-stroke win over Michael Allenand Chien-soon Lu at the JELD-WEN Tradition. Mark Calcavecchia and Tom Lehman tied for fourth.

• Funk claimed the JELD-WEN Tradition for the second time in three years (2008 and 2010). It was also his third major title in the last three years. He won the 2009 U.S. Senior Open at Crooked Stick.

• It was the final year for JELD-WEN as title sponsor of the Tradition. The Champions Tour announced at the conclusion of the tournament that Regions Financial Corporation will be the new title sponsor. The Regions Tradition will be played at Shoal Creek in May 2-8, 2011, making it the first of the five major championships next season.

Bernhard Langer finished T10 at the JELD-WEN Tradition and increased his lead over Fred Couples in the Charles Schwab Cup. Here's a look at the top five in the standings:

Player Points
Bernhard Langer 2,506
Fred Couples 1,993
Tom Lehman 1,421
Fred Funk 1,193
John Cook 1,141

• Couples and Tom Pernice Jr. missed the cut, which came at 3-under, at the Wyndham Championship on the PGA TOUR.

• The JELD-WEN Tradition marked Bob Gilder's 47th consecutive major championship on the Champions Tour, the best current streak in that category.

Barry Lane won his maiden European Senior Tour victory in his fourth start at the Scottish Senior Open at Fairmont St Andrews.

COMING UP

Tom Kite, the only multiple winner of the Boeing Classic (2006, 2008), will shoot to do something he's never done in his PGA TOUR career; win the same tournament three times. The last time a player won the same event three times was Jim Thorpe who claimed the 2003, 2006, 2007 Charles Schwab Cup Championship.

• The TPC Snoqualmie Ridge is the third of four TPC courses to host official Champions Tour events in 2010.

• Langer is bidding to win a fifth Champions Tour event this year, something that hasn't happened since Craig Stadler won five events in 2004.

• In the five-year history of the Boeing Classic, no first-round leaders/co-leaders have gone on to win.

• The seven-man playoff at the 2007 Boeing Classic, featuring Denis Watson, Gil Morgan, Dana Quigley, R.W. Eaks, David Eger, Joe Ozaki and Craig Stadler is the largest ever in a PGA TOUR-sanctioned tournament. Watson won with an eagle on the second extra hole.

Tim Simpson's ace at No. 6 in the opening round of last year's Boeing Classic was the first and only hole-in-one in tournament history.

• 73-- The number of putts Loren Roberts required to win the 2009 Boeing Classic. When Tom Kite won the 2006 Boeing Classic he needed just 72 putts, tying Jim Thorpe (2003 Kroger Classic) as the players with the fewest putts in a 54-hole event last decade (2000-2009).

• Langer is one of four Champions Tour players to earn back-to-back Player of the Year honors. He is seeking to become the first to earn the award for the third year in a row. The three players to previously earn the award in successive years are Jim Colbert (1995-96), Hale Irwin, (1997-98) and Jay Haas (2006-07).

• The Champions Tour will play in Korea for the first time in history next month when the newly-named Posco E&C Songdo Championship presented by Gale International kicks off September 6-12 at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea.

Ken Green, a five-time winner on the PGA TOUR, who lost the lower half of his right leg in a tragic RV accident last June and recovered enough to return to the Champions Tour this summer, has been named as the winner of the 2010 Chelsea Cohen Courage Award by the Fairfield County Sports Commission. Green will accept the award at the Commission's sixth annual "Sports Night" banquet at the Greenwich Hyatt on October 18.

• Peter Thompson (8/23/29), Tom McKnight (8/24/54), Langer(8/27/57) and Don Pooley (8/27/51) celebrate birthdays this week.

ON THIS DATE

• 8/27/89 -- David Frost claims the NEC World Series of Golf and earns a 10-year exemption into all PGA TOUR co-sponsored events.

• 8/28/83-- Nick Price wins the first of 18 PGA TOUR victories when he goes wire-to-wire to beat Jack Nicklaus by two strokes for the World Series of Golf crown in Akron, OH.

• 8/30/93 -- John Harris claims the U.S. Amateur title at Champions Golf Club in Houston over Danny Ellis, 5 & 3.

QUOTES TO NOTE

"I credit the Champions Tour. They made it so old guys like me could be competitive" -- Tom Watson explains one of the reasons he was able to contend at the 2009 British Open at Turnberry.

"What Bernhard Langer has done is being greatly overlooked by the major golfing media" -- Stan Kobierowski, in a letter to a magazine, referring to Langer's back-to-back major championship wins after traveling through eight time zones.

"Probably. Guys don't play much anymore. I won't say it won't be broken but it's pretty cool to have an all-time record' -- Jay Haas, when asked if he thinks his record of 592 made cuts on the PGA TOUR will last.

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