Notes: Calcavecchia picks up seventh straight top-10

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The 2012 Champions Tour season is idle until the Allianz Championship (Feb. 6-12) at The Old Course at Broken Sound Club in Boca Raton, Fla. The purse is $1.8 million and the winner will receive $270,000 and 270 Charles Schwab Cup points. Last year, Tom Lehman won by a stroke over Rod Spittle and Jeff Sluman. Lehman went on to win two more times in 2011 and was voted the Champions Tour Player of the Year.

RECENTLY

• Dan Forsman won the season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai for his third career Champions Tour title. Fellow Utah resident Jay Don Blake was runner-up. Forsman's 15-under 201 winning total was the highest to claim the event since 2000 when the late George Archer won with 9-under.

• Dan Forsman ranked in the top-10 in the three main statistical categories at the Mitsubishi Electric Championship. The only winner to accomplish the same feat on the Champions Tour in 2011 was Nick Price at the Toshiba Classic. Forsman was T4 (34/42) in Fairways Hit, T1 (44/54) in Greens In Regulation and T7 (28) in Putts Per Round.

• Mark Calcavecchia finished T7 at the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai, his seventh straight top-10 finish on the Champions Tour since his win at the Boeing Classic last fall.

• The Champions Tour event in Savannah, Ga., renamed the Liberty Mutual Insurance Legends of Golf, has extended its contract with the Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort & Spa through 2013. Also unveiled was a new logo for the event.

• Gene Sauers, who will join the Champions Tour when he turns 50 in August, was inducted into the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame last week. Last year, Sauers made a comeback, playing on the Nationwide Tour, after a five-year absence from the game because of injuries and a potentially fatal disorder. He suffered a painful skin condition called Stevens-Johnson Syndrome that required long-term hospitalization and treatment. Sauers was a three-time winner on the PGA TOUR and won almost $5 million during his career.

• Fred Couples will make his 18th appearance at the PGA TOUR's Waste Management Phoenix Open February 2-5. In his previous 17 starts in the event, he has six top-20 finishes. Couples' best finish came in 1988 when he lost in a three-hole playoff to fellow Champions Tour professional and soon-to-be World Golf Hall of Fame inductee Sandy Lyle.

• The four Champions Tour professionals who competed in the PGA TOUR's Humana Challenge failed to reach the final round. Greg Norman withdrew during the third round while Mark Brooks, Steve Jones and Tom Pernice, Jr. all missed the 54-hole cut.

COMING UP

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

• Tom Lehman's 2011 Allianz Championship victory ensured at least one win in each year of his Champions Tour career. He teamed with Bernhard Langer to win the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf in 2009, his first season as a senior, before defeating Fred Couples and David Frost in a one-hole playoff at the 2010 Senior PGA Championship.

• Olin Browne made a hole-in-one during the first round of the 2011 Allianz Championship. Browne also had aces on both the Nationwide Tour and PGA TOUR, making him the fourth player to record aces in tournaments on all three Tours. The others are Jim Thorpe, Chip Beckand Dave Barr.

• One of many 'green' initiatives at the 2012 Allianz Championship includes a Florida-based solar technology company, Golf Cart Solar, who will be showcasing its solar technology on a select number of carts during the tournament.

CHARLES SCHWAB CUP

• Dan Forsman leads the Charles Schwab Cup with 307 points after his victory in the season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai. When John Cook won the event last year and led the Charles Schwab Cup standings, it represented the only week eventual champion Tom Lehman didn't lead the points list.

NUMBERS

20 -- The number of consecutive sub-par scores Loren Roberts had recorded at Hualalai GC, which ceased when he posted a 3-over 75 in Sunday's final round of the Mitsubishi Electric Championship.

DID YOU KNOW?

• The last two winners of the Allianz Championship have gone on to become the Champions Tour Player of the Year in the year of their victory (Bernhard Langer/2010 and Tom Lehman/2011).

• Kirk Triplett, who becomes eligible for the Champions Tour when he turns 50 on March 29, would have ranked first in Driving Accuracy on the PGA TOUR last year if he had played the required number of rounds (50) to be officially ranked. Triplett hit 76.07% of fairways in 26 rounds last year. Joe Durant led the category with 75.65%.

ON THIS DATE

1/28/07 -- Fred Funk set a new Champions Tour record when he cruised to an 11-stroke win at the Turtle Bay Championship in Hawaii. His 11-stroke win broke the previous record for the largest-winning margin in a 54-hole event of nine strokes by three players -- Rod Funseth, Gibby Gilbert and Dave Stockton.

QUOTES TO NOTE

"I worked twice as much to feel half as good." -- Mike Reid's response when asked how his off-season was before teeing it up in the first event of the year in Hawaii.

"I don't know if it's an advantage but I know it's good for me to do it. I guess you could say I was preparing for the Champions Tour by playing on the regular TOUR." -- Corey Pavin explains his participation at the PGA TOUR's Sony Open in Hawaii the week before the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai to open the Champions Tour season. Pavin finished T38 at Sony and T18 in Hualalai.

"I sat at home over the holidays and kept thinking, 'What will it take to get through the door'. I kept thinking, 'I've got to do the little things that all add up.'" -- Dan Forsman shares his secret to victory at the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai.