Notes: Lehman leads money list, Schwab Cup race

text size

The Champions Tour heads to Naples, FL, where The Quarry will host The ACE Group Classic February 14-20. The purse will be $1.6 million and the winner will receive $240,000 as well as 240 Charles Schwab Cup points. Last year, Fred Couples fought off a late charge by Tommy Armour III to claim his first Champions Tour victory.

LAST WEEK

• Tom Lehman's victory at the Allianz Championship, and his second-place effort in the season opener at the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai, has him atop both the money list, with $454,000, as well as the Charles Schwab Cup race with 454 points.

• Hale Irwin's T6 finish at the Allianz Championship was his 199th top-10 finish, leaving him just four shy of tying Bob Charles' Champions Tour mark of 203.

• Jim Rutledge parlayed his T6 finish into a berth in next week's The ACE Group Classic field as a non-exempt top-10 finisher. Rutledge had earned a berth in this past week's event through open qualifying.

• The winners on both Tours last week (Lehman/Allianz Championship/Champions Tour and D.A. Points/AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am/PGA TOUR) are former winners on the Nationwide Tour.

• Olin Browne made an ace during the first round of the Allianz Championship. Browne also had hole-in-ones on both the Nationwide Tour and PGA TOUR and is just one of four players to do so. The others are Jim Thorpe, Chip Beck and Dave Barr.

• Champions Tour professionals Jay Don Blake and Dan Forsman will be inducted into the Utah Golf Hall of Fame at a ceremony planned for May 11.

• Two-time Champions Tour winner Mark Wiebe and the late Paul Runyan, who won two PGA Championships and played in two Ryder Cups, were announced as inductees for 2011 into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame. The induction ceremony is scheduled for June 12.

• At the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, Tom Pernice, Jr. finished tied for 46th and Michael Allen posted a tie for 60th.

• Mark O'Meara missed the cut at the Dubai Desert Classic on the European Tour.

• Members at the Australian Golf Club were startled to see Jack Nicklaus out on their course last week. The Golden Bear had been on a fishing trip in New Zealand and decided to visit the course he redesigned in the mid-1970s. The club is considering upgrading its greens and is consulting Nicklaus because of his past association.

COMING UP

• World Golf Hall of Fame member Gary Player, the first winner in the history of The ACE Group Classic (1988), will make his 23rd appearance in the Champions Tour tournament in Naples (he skipped in 2006).

• Allen Doyle's five-stroke, wire-to-wire victory in the 1999 edition of The ACE Group Classic made him the first player to claim titles on both the Champions Tour and Nationwide Tour.

MORE ACE GROUP

Power Rankings: ACE
Who's in the field?
Memorable Moments

• Here's a nice perk for a few recent home-buyers -- anyone who purchased a Pulte Home in The Quarry community in the month of January received a spot in The ACE Group Classic Pro-Am.

• The First Tee Challenge, on Tuesday of tournament week, will feature members of The First Tee of Naples/Collier Chapter and The First Tee of Philadelphia Chapter. The event, in its third year, will be a three-hole competition with Champions Tour professionals Peter Jacobsen, a Bonita Springs resident and Jay Sigel, from Bryn Mawr, Pa., just outside of Philadelphia, competing with their respective teams. Sigel is the president of The First Tee of Greater Philadelphia.

• All Fifth Third Bank ATM or credit card holders will receive free admission at The ACE Group Classic on Sunday by presenting their card at the main gate.

• The ACE Group Classic partnered with the Naples Daily News to offer amateur golfers the chance to play with Champions Tour professional and World Golf Hall of Fame member Curtis Strange. The winner of the Naples Daily News Amateur Shootout (Monday, Feb. 14) on the championship course at The Quarry will earn a spot with Strange in the Thursday pro-am preceding the tournament.

• Ernie Gonzalez, who won the 1986 Pensacola Open and is one of only nine left-handers to win on the PGA TOUR, becomes eligible for the Champions Tour when he turns 50 on Saturday, Feb. 19.

NUMBERS

24 -- The number of years The ACE Group Classic will have been played in Naples when the 2011 edition gets underway.

3 -- The number of playoffs in the 23-year history of The ACE Group Classic.

71.685 -- The scoring average for the 2011 Allianz Championship, the highest average in the five-year history of the tournament.

ON THIS DATE

2/14/82 -- Wayne Levi makes history when he becomes the first TOUR player to win a tournament while using a colored golf ball when he wins the Hawaiian Open. A Wilson staff member, Levi used an Optic Orange ball in his victory.

2/14/93 -- Tom Kite shoots five straight rounds in the 60s and goes on to victory at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. He becomes first player to hit $8 million in career earnings.

2/14/99 -- Bruce Fleisher becomes the first Champions Tour player to win his first two starts on the circuit when he is a three-stroke victor over Larry Nelson at the American Express Invitational.

2/17/81 -- Arnold Palmer shoots his age (71) during the fourth round of the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic.

QUOTES TO NOTE

"I was pretty beat up after that. I'm not as young as I used to be." -- Lehman, who played 54 holes in a 30-hour stretch at the weather-delayed Waste Management Phoenix Open before taking a red-eye flight to Boca Raton where he won the Allianz Championship.

"He just plays well every single round, not every single week, every single round." -- Fred Couples on Bernhard Langer.

"Nice wine. No surgery. Just drink." -- Chien Soon Lu explains one of the remedies that helped cure his back woes. The magic wine was provided by a friend he called 'Long High'.