Notes: Gallagher set to make over-50 debut in home state

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Stan Badz/PGA TOUR

Jim Gallagher, Jr. won five times in 545 PGA TOUR starts.

The Champions Tour is idle before heading to Fallen Oak in Biloxi, Miss. for the Mississippi Gulf Resort Classic on March 28-April 3. The purse is $1.6 million with $240,000 and 240 Charles Schwab Cup points going to the winner. Last year, David Eger fired a final-round 69 to edge Tommy Armour III by one stroke at the inaugural event.

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• Jim Gallagher, Jr. will turn 50 on March 24 and make his Champions Tour debut at the Mississippi Gulf Resort Classic. Gallagher, who lives in Greenwood, Miss., is a five-time winner on the PGA TOUR and was a member of the 1993 United States Ryder Cup team. He was also a member of the inaugural U.S. Presidents Cup team in 1994.

• Three former Masters champions, Larry Mize, Bernhard Langer and Craig Stadler, are scheduled to play the Mississippi Gulf Resort Classic on April 1-3, before heading to Augusta National the following week.

• Andy Bean is scheduled to compete on the PGA TOUR this week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard as a past champion. Bean makes his appearance on the 30th anniversary of his win at Bay Hill in 1981.

• Actor Michael J. Fox will once again be a competitor in the Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am at TPC Tampa Bay on April 15-17. Fox, 49, has Parkinson's disease, a brain disorder that causes tremors and difficulty with walking, movement and coordination. Fox's foundation to support research into the disease is one of the beneficiaries of the Champions Tour pro-am team event.

LAST WEEK
• Champions Tour professionals Kenny Perryand Mark Calcavecchia missed the cut at the PGA TOUR's Transitions Championship.

• Fred Funk withdrew before the first round of the Transitions Championship with pulled cartilage in his chest. He said he felt some pain in his chest during the final round at the Toshiba Classic the week before and it hadn't improved.

Huston

• John Huston, who will become eligible for the Champions Tour when he turns 50 on June 1, has not missed a Transitions Championship after winning the inaugural event in 2000. Huston got into last week's tournament when Alvaro Quiros withdrew due to injury after receiving a sponsor's exemption. Huston missed the cut by a stroke, shooting 74-68-142. Brian Gay was the only other player in the field last week who has played in every Transitions Championship since the event began in 2000.

• Kenny Perry serves as a spokesman for Transitions so last week's Transitions Championship in the Tampa Bay area was always going to be on his schedule. However, as fate would have it, the Kentucky native received an added bonus the Sunday before when he found out the Kentucky Wildcats would be playing their opening game in this year's NCAA Basketball Tournament in Tampa as well.

Another bit of good fortune went Perry's way on Tuesday when he received an 8:58 a.m. tee time for Round 1 on Thursday. He was able to finish early and make the short drive to the St. Petersburg Times Forum in downtown Tampa when the Wildcats played against Princeton that same afternoon.

• Kim Young, who finished T28 at the Champions Tour National Qualifying Tournament at TPC Eagle Trace last year, won the Space Coast Senior Open at Duran G.C. last week. Young shot 11-under for a three-round total of 205 in the Sunbelt Senior Tour event.

NUMBERS

1 -- The number of wire-to-wire winners on the Champions Tour in 2011. Nick Price won wire-to-wire at the Toshiba Classic.

983 -- The number of official combined starts on the PGA TOUR/Champions Tour for Tom Kite. Eleven players have made 1,000 or more combined starts.

29,430 -- The number of dollars that separates Kenny Perry (1st with $31,652,494) and Hale Irwin (2nd with $31,623,064) on the All Time Money list (combined earnings of Champions Tour players from both the PGA TOUR and Champions Tour).

DID YOU KNOW?

• Three of the four winners on the Champions Tour this year are also former major championship winners (Nick Price, Bernhard Langer, and Tom Lehman). John Cook won the season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai.

ON THIS DATE

3/21/82 -- Jerry Pate claims the first Tournament Players Championship staged at the TPC Sawgrass in dramatic fashion. Playing with an orange ball, Pate played the final seven holes in 4-under-par and birdied both the 17th (15-footer) and 18th (5-iron to 2-feet) holes for a two-stroke victory over Brad Bryant and Scott Simpson. Pate celebrates by pushing former Commissioner Deane Beman and course architect Pete Dye into the large lake left of No. 18.

3/27/77 -- In his only PGA TOUR victory, Graham Marsh edges Tom Watson by one stroke to win the Heritage Classic at Hilton Head.

3/27/00 -- "Be the right club today" shot by Hal Sutton on the final hole of Monday finish at PLAYERS Championship. He beats Tiger Woods by one shot.

QUOTES TO NOTE

"I remember if you hit the ball in the rough, it might have been a lateral hazard. You chipped out. You couldn't hit it. That's probably why Trevino won because back then he was hitting it so straight. It was perfect for him." -- John Cook comments on his memories of Shoal Creek where he played the 1984 PGA Championship. Cook will return to Shoal Creek in May for the Regions Tradition.

"A long time ago when I started this, one of my mentors said, 'Go for it -- you're not going to starve and you're not going to die.'" -- Rod Spittle reflects on his win at the 2010 AT&T Championship to earn fully exempt status after grinding since 2005.