Rd. 4 Notes: Charles Schwab Cup Championship

text size

Weather: Sunny and cool with highs in the mid-50s. Winds were from the NW at 5-15 mph.

• Here's a final look at the 2011 Charles Schwab Cup standings. Tom Lehman earns a $1 million annuity, while finishers 2-3-4-5 earn $500,000, $300,000, $200,000 and $100,000.

With his Victory.....Jay Don Blake

• Wins his second Champions Tour event in his 47th career start and claims his second title in his last five appearances (Songdo IBD Championship in Korea).

• Becomes the eighth player to win the Charles Schwab Cup Championship in his first appearance and the first to do so since Mark McNulty in 2004.

• Joins Tom Lehman (3), John Cook (3) and Fred Couples (2) as just the fourth multiple winner on the Champions Tour in 2011.

• Earns 880 Charles Schwab Cup points and secures the fourth spot in the season-long race (1,803 total points).

• Wins his second event in California -- won the 1991 Shearson-Lehman Brothers Open on the PGA TOUR

• Collects a check for $440,000 and finishes the 2011 season with $1,531,877, more than twice what he made in his first two years combined on the Champions Tour.

• Blake's 72-hole score of 8-under 276 is the highest numerical score in the Charles Schwab Cup Championship since Mark McNulty shot a 277 in 2004. It was also the highest score in relation to par since Jim Colbert finished with a score of 6-under-par 282 at the 1995 Dunes Golf and Beach Club in Myrtle Beach, SC.

• Blake's victory marked the fourth consecutive year the winner has come from the last group. Blake also continued a trend on the Champions Tour. The tournament winner has come from the last group in every event since the Senior British Open in mid-July, a string of 10 straight events. In all 18 of 24 tournament winners played in the final group during the season.

• Lehman claimed the Arnold Palmer Award as the Champions Tour's leading money winner with $2,081,526. Mark Calcavecchia finished second with $1,867,991 and John Cook was third with $1,747,075.

• Michael Allen was the bridesmaid again this year although he shared that distinction with three others -- Mark Calcavecchia, Jay Haas and Loren Roberts. A year ago, Allen finished in sole possession of second place, two behind John Cook.

• None of the 30 players in the field posted four consecutive sub-par rounds. The last time that happened was in 2004.

• Loren Roberts finished T2, his best showing in seven appearances and his fifth top-10 finish and fourth in the top-five.

• Of the six total eagles, only three of those came on par-5 holes.

• Two-time defending champion John Cook finished T20 in defense of his title.

• The overall scoring average for the event was 71.075, including an average of 70.967 on Sunday. The most difficult holes were Nos. 12 and 14 with an average score of 4.283. There were just five birdies on No. 14 for the event.

• The tournament will move to a new home in 2012 when it moves to the Cochise Course at Desert Mountain in Scottsdale, Ariz., from October 29-November 4. The Cochise Course was the site of The Tradition from 1989 to 2001. It will become the seventh course to host this tournament.

• This week Champions Tour pros carded a total of six eagles which helped raise $75,000 for the area First Tee programs under Chevron's Eagles for Education fund. The money recognizes the number of students that attended the Eagles Nest and Stem Zone during the tournament. Since the 2010 Chevron World Challenge the Eagles for Education program has raised $750,000, giving thousands of kids "a better shot" at an education."

• Roberts led all players with 18 birdies....Jay Haas topped all players in Putts Per Round with 26.50....Fred Couples led in Greens in regulation at 77.78 (56 of 72) and David Eger was the leader in Driving Accuracy at 87.50 (49 of 56).