The Champions Tour is idle for the week before a three-week stretch to complete the season. The Tour heads to Houston, Texas for the Administaff Small Business Classic at The Woodlands CC on October 18-24 and will stay in Texas for the AT&T Championship in San Antonio the following week. The Charles Schwab Cup Championship on November 1-7 at Harding Park in San Francisco will conclude the season.
LAST WEEK
Mark O'Meara sank a four-foot par putt on the first extra hole to defeat Michael Allen and win the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm. It was O'Meara's first individual title on the Champions Tour and his second win this season. He teamed with Nick Price earlier this year to claim the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf in Savannah.
O'Meara's win at the fifth and final major championship of the season earns a berth in next May's PLAYERS Championship on the PGA TOUR.
Allen's playoff loss to O'Meara at the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship marked his second consecutive runner-up finish. Allen was second to Bill Haas at the PGA TOUR's Viking Classic in Mississippi.
Regardless of how the next two tournaments unfold, no player can overtake Bernhard Langer heading to the Charles Schwab Cup Championship at Harding Park in San Francisco (Nov. 1-7). Langer has 3,160 Charles Schwab Cup points and a 790-point advantage over Fred Couples with three events remaining. Langer and Couples are now the only two players able to win the Charles Schwab Cup this year.
Corey Pavin finished T57 at the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship after a busy week as United States Ryder Cup team captain in Wales. Two of his assistant team captains fared better -- Jeff Sluman posted his best showing of the year, finishing fourth. Davis Love III finished T33 at The McGladrey Classic, while also hosting the event.
Doug Ford will be one of five inductees into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2011. Ford has made 950 combined starts on the PGA TOUR and Champions Tour. Only 11 players have made more than 1,000 combined starts.
Gary Hallberg is now a member of two famous foursomes. Hallberg, who won the recent Ensure Classic at Rock Barn, joined Ron Streck, Keith Fergus and Tom Lehman as the only four players to capture wins on the Nationwide Tour, PGA TOUR and Champions Tour. He was also the first player to be named first-team All-American four straight years, a distinction later matched by Phil Mickelson, David Duval and Bryce Molder.
COMING UP
With just two full-field events remaining Keith Fergus sits in the 30th spot on the money list for the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship with $512,645. He leads Bob Tway ($509,694) by just $2,951 for the final spot. Mike Goodes is No. 32 with $491,884. Only the top 30 money-winners are eligible for the tournament.
Now that the year's final major championship is complete, Langer's 790-point lead in the Charles Schwab Cup race is the second-largest margin, at this stage of the season, in the 10-year history of the Cup. In 2003, Tom Watson carried a 958-point lead at this stage of the season onto victory.
Steve Lowery celebrates his 50th birthday on Tuesday, October 12 and will make his Champions Tour debut at next week's Administaff Small Business Classic. Kenny Perry is also scheduled to make his Champions Tour debut at the Houston event. There have been four previous occasions this year where multiple PGA TOUR winners have made their debut at the same event -- Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai (Corey Pavin, Couples), The ACE Group Classic (Paul Azinger, Tommy Armour III), Toshiba Classic (Ted Schulz, David Peoples) and Mississippi Gulf Resort Classic (Bobby Clampett, Jodie Mudd).
In conjunction with October's designation as Breast Cancer Awareness month, the Administaff Small Business Classic is encouraging volunteers, fans, media representatives and officials to wear pink during the tournament on Saturday. The 18 flags on the flagsticks will also be pink during Saturday's round.
Mike Fetchick celebrates his 88th birthday on Wednesday, Oct. 13. Fetchick holds the Champions Tour record as the oldest winner (1985 Hilton Head Seniors Invitational which he won on his 63rd birthday), and the longest time between his last PGA TOUR win and his first Champions Tour win (1956 Mayfair Inn Open) -- 28 years, 9 months and 27 days.
ON THIS DATE
10/11/91 -- Chip Beck ties a PGA TOUR record when he shoots a 13-under-par 59 in the third round of the Las Vegas Invitational.
10/13/85 -- Mike Fetchick celebrates his 63rd birthday by winning the Hilton Head Seniors International, making him the oldest winner in Champions Tour history.
10/16/88 -- Pavin becomes the fifth player in PGA TOUR history to break 260 when he shoots a 21-under-par 259 to capture the Texas Open by eight strokes over Robert Wrenn.
QUOTES TO NOTE
"But every time I got in (a PGA TOUR event), I played out here, and when I wasn't in, I could play on the Champions Tour. So I got to play a lot. I kept my game in good shape, and I think the Champions Tour has helped my confidence a little bit" -- Tom Pernice, Jr., on how he decided where to play this year. Pernice finished T15 at The McGladrey Classic last week and has seven top-10s from eight starts on the Champions Tour this season.
"I've come so close so many times in the last three years" -- O'Meara, on winning his first individual Champions Tour title after nine runner-up finishes.
"I've had a lot of second-place finishes that felt pretty darn good, and this one doesn't feel quite as good" -- Allen, on his playoff loss at the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship the week after his runner-up finish to Bill Haas at the Viking Classic on the PGA TOUR.
"If you want to be a good tournament player, you've got to learn to handle the heat. The only way to prepare for that is to play for your own dough" -- Ford.