Notes: Hall of Famers win skins; you can go to Hall

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Chris Condon/PGA TOUR

The Champions Tour has had a streak of wins by Ohio State alums, including John Cook at the season opener at Hualalai.

The Champions Tour is idle this week before heading to Boca Raton, Fla., where The Old Course at Broken Sound will host the Allianz Championship February 7-13. The purse will be $1.8 million and the winner will receive $270,000 and 270 Charles Schwab Cup points. Last year, Bernhard Langer holed an improbable bunker shot for eagle at the first extra hole to defeat John Cook in a playoff after both players had tied at 17-under.

LAST WEEK

• After not winning a skin since the second hole on Saturday, Tom Watson holed a 12-foot birdie putt on the par-3 17th hole to win five skins and $250,000, thus allowing the Jack Nicklaus-Watson team to successfully defend their Kaanapali Champions Skins Game title with a $310,000 total. Nicklaus set Watson up for the winning putt at No. 17 by rifling a 136-yard, 6-iron shot into a howling left-to-right wind to 12 feet. Bernhard Langer and Mark O'Meara made a two-putt par on the second playoff hole (18th) to claim the final skin worth $100,000 and the duo finished second in the competition with $300,000. Both the Nicklaus-Watson team and the Langer-O'Meara team earned seven total skins over the two-day event.

• For the first time at Kaanapali, all four teams earned money in the Champions Skins Game. Prior to 2011, all four teams earned money in the 2007 event at Wailea Golf Club on Maui.

• Tom Watson's birdie putt at No. 17 at the Champions Skins Game was worth $250,000 to the Jack Nicklaus-Watson team, the most money earned on one hole since 2009 when Ben Crenshaw/Fuzzy Zoeller pocketed $300,000 for a birdie at the par-3 12th hole. Ten percent of the competitor's winnings went to charities of their choice.

• With John Cook's win at the season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai following his season ending victory at the 2010 Charles Schwab Cup Championship, members of the 1976-77 Ohio State golf team have now claimed the last three Champions Tour events. Rod Spittle, the 2010 AT&T Championship winner, was also a member of the same Buckeye squad. It's a fair chance the college connection could continue at the next event -- the Allianz Championship. Last year in Boca Raton, Cook lost to Bernhard Langer in a playoff while Joey Sindelar, a three-time All-American at Ohio State University, finished third.

• John Cook made an appearance at a TOUR event last week; however, it was not to compete. Cook stopped off in San Diego after his win at Hualalai to visit the Nike Golf equipment van at Torrey Pines, the venue for last week's Farmers Insurance Open.

• Kenny Perry (75-76) missed the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open on the PGA TOUR.

• Texans Robert Thompson and Bruce Smith won the 53rd annual PGA Senior-Junior Team Championship at the PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie, Fla. Thompson has conditional status on the Champions Tour in 2011 after he tied for fifth at the Champions Tour National Qualifying Tournament at TPC Eagle Trace in November with John Morse and Roger Chapman. Morse gained the fifth and final fully-exempt spot while Chapman was sixth and Thompson finished seventh after completion of the playoffs.

• The Connecticut Sports Writers' Alliance selected Champions Tour professional Ken Green and Jamie Botteon, a goalkeeper on the Bristol Eastern High School girls soccer team, to receive the Bob Casey Courage Award. Both athletes will be honored at a dinner in April. Green made a return to professional golf 10 months after losing a leg in an auto accident and was voted as the 2010 Champions Tour Comeback Player of the Year. Botteon, 17, was diagnosed in Dec. 2009 with acute myeloid leukemia -- the same disease that her brother, Wade, died from five years earlier at 13. She overcame the disease the following spring and regained her spot on the soccer team.

• The second annual Saadiyat Beach Classic hosted by Gary Player raised around $545,000 for children in need. The money raised goes directly to the Emirates Autism center, Ability Center for Special Needs, and The Player Foundation. The 2011 event paired male and female professional golfers with celebrities and sports stars from around the world.

COMING UP

• Beginning this week until March 21, Champions Tour and World Golf Hall of Fame Facebook fans will be able to participate in a seven-week Trivia Challenge via Facebook.com/ChampionsTour and Facebook.com/GolfHallofFame, with the chance to win the "Golden Ticket to the Induction Ceremony". Each time a fan plays the challenge, they will be required to answer a series of 10 questions related to Champions Tour tournament and player history and World Golf Hall of Fame members. Fans will be awarded points for choosing the correct answer in the least amount of time.

A participant's best score each week will count towards the weekly prize of a dozen golf balls, while their top three weekly scores will count towards the grand prize -- The Golden Ticket -- a trip for two to the 2011 World Golf Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in St. Augustine, Fla. The trip will include airfare, car rental, a three-night hotel stay, a round of golf at the Slammer and Squire, along with entry into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

• Gil Morgan is scheduled to headline a list of guest speakers at the Heartland Golf Expo on Feb. 4-5 in Oklahoma. Morgan is a 25-time winner on the Champions Tour. Only Hale Irwin (45) and Lee Trevino (29) have won more Champions Tour events.

NUMBERS

11 -- The number of players to shoot three rounds in the 60s at the 2010 Allianz Championship.

500 -- The number of Champions Tour events Jim Colbert will have played in when he tees off at the 2010 Allianz Championship.

ON THIS DATE

2/1/81 -- After weather forces a Monday finish, John Cook makes par on the third playoff hole to win his first PGA TOUR title at the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am.

2/2/97 -- Mark O'Meara makes it five victories in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, holding off two of the PGA TOUR's hottest players in Tiger Woods and David Duval by one stroke. Woods carded rounds of 63-64 on the weekend and finishes with three straight birdies, while Duval shoots a 10-under-par 62 on Saturday and a 71 on Sunday which included birdies on Nos. 17 and 18. O'Meara earns his victory by shooting four consecutive 67s.

2/6/83 -- Jack Nicklaus finishes 6th at the Bing Crosby Pebble Beach National Pro-Am and becomes first player to top $4 million in career earnings.

QUOTES TO NOTE

"I wanted something very peaceful and refreshing." -- Fuzzy Zoeller comments on the unique bottle design of Fuzzy's Ultra Premium Vodka. The design features "3D-like" artwork of a golf hole with a lake in front and mountains in the background.

"It's a blast for me to compete against guys 15-20 years younger." -- Jack Nicklaus, 71, after defending the 2011 Champions Skins Game title with 61-year-old Tom Watson as his partner.

"My 72 felt like a 66 because it was a game of survival out there." -- Frankie Minoza, a Champions Tour rookie, explains his opening-round at The Country Club Invitational in his native country, The Philippines. Minoza finished tied for ninth, after a final-round 82 in the wind-swept event.

"He taught me how to move the ball left to right at will, which I'd never been able to do. And this is from one of the greatest to ever strike a golf ball. It's one of the reasons I won in San Jose. The shot I holed on 17 on Sunday was a flat, sliding wedge, so spending time with Lee was huge." -- Rocco Mediate credits Lee Trevino for helping him win the 2010 Frys.com Open.