Notes: PLAYERS success, Pate and a $1,674 clubhead

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The Champions Tour is idle for a week before heading to Louisville, Ky., for the Senior PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club, May 23-29. The purse is $2 million and the winner will receive $360,000 and 720 Charles Schwab Cup points. Last year, Tom Lehman made par on the first playoff hole to defeat Fred Couples and David Frost to capture his first senior major title.

LAST WEEK

• Three Champions Tour professionals teed it up at THE PLAYERS Championship last week and all of them made the cut. Mark O'Meara (74th), the oldest player in the field at 54, earned his spot after his playoff victory at the 2010 Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship. Kenny Perry (T39) and Corey Pavin (T45) both finished in the top-125 on the 2010 PGA TOUR money list to earn their spots in the field. Jerry Pate, the winner here in 1982, was also on site early in the week to celebrate the 30th playing of the championship at the Stadium Course.

• Gary Koch, a six-time winner on the PGA TOUR who has over $1.3 million in Champions Tour career earnings, shot 5-under 67 for the top score at U.S Open local qualifying at Hunters Green CC in Tampa, Fla. Koch has played in 14 U.S. Open Championships, the last in 2001. His best result in the championship came in 1982 when he tied for 6th.

• John Zimmer, the winner of The Golden Ticket, a trivia contest hosted on the Champions Tour and World Golf Hall of Fame Facebook pages, met World Golf Hall of Fame member Charlie Sifford during his trip to the Hall of Fame Induction ceremony. Zimmer also enjoyed attending the Tuesday practice round at THE PLAYERS Championship.

• Fred Couples' longtime caddie, Joe LaCava, carried the bag of Dustin Johnson during THE PLAYERS Championship since Couples did not play. Johnson, who had gone MC, T79 and T34 in three appearances at TPC Sawgrass with former caddie Bobby Brown, finished T57 with LaCava on the bag. LaCava in his 20 years with Couples claimed one victory at the Stadium Course and five finishes inside the top 15.

• On the first tee of the recent Regions Tradition Pro-Am at Shoal Creek in Birmingham, Ala., basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley broke his driver on his opening tee shot. The clubhead traveled further than his ball. Fuzzy Zoeller, the Champions Tour professional playing with Barkley, suggested he autograph the clubhead and auction it for charity. The autographed broken club earned $1,674 and proceeds will be donated to the Tornado Disaster Relief efforts and the Children's Hospital of Alabama.

• Last week, Champions Tour professionals Jay Don Blake and Dan Forsman were inducted into the Utah Golf Hall of Fame. It marked the seventh induction ceremony and brought the total number of honorees to 33. The last induction ceremony took place in 2007, when Champions Tour professional Mike Reid was honored.

• Last week, Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis was announced as the host venue of the 2013 Senior PGA Championship presented by KitchenAid. The 2011 Senior PGA Championship will be played next week at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky.

COMING UP

• Steve Pate will make his Champions Tour debut at the Senior PGA Championship. Pate turns 50 on Thursday, May 26, the opening round of the championship.

• Defending champion Gary Hallberg will be at Rock Barn Golf & Spa in Conover, N.C., for the Greater Hickory Classic Media Day on Tuesday, May 17. Hallberg won the event in dramatic fashion last year when he started the final round five strokes behind Fred Couples, but closed with an 11-under 61, his career-low round, to win by a stroke. It was the largest come-from-behind win on the Champions Tour last year and his 61 tied the lowest final-round score by a tournament winner in Champions Tour history.

• Robert Mize, the son of 1987 Masters champion and current Champions Tour professional Larry Mize, will play golf at Furman University when he joins the school for the 2011-12 season.

• Robert Floyd, son of World Golf Hall of Fame member Raymond Floyd, will appear on the Golf Channel's latest edition of "Big Break" this week.

• Craig Stadler, Corey Pavin, Tom Lehman and Peter Jacobsen are among the list of professional golfers who will compete in the Patriot Cup, a May 30 charity pro-am event at Patriot Golf Club in Owasso, Okla. The Champions Tour professionals will be joined by Rickie Fowler, Hunter Mahan, Gary Woodland, Bo Van Pelt and Rocco Mediate. Proceeds will go to the Folds of Honor Foundation, which awards scholarships to families of military members disabled or killed while serving their country.

• The Dick's Sporting Goods Open will donate 100 percent of ticket sales to the work of the American Lung Association.

NUMBERS

8 -- The number of Champions Tour professionals scheduled to tee it up in the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial on the PGA TOUR (Mark Brooks, Olin Browne, Keith Clearwater, David Frost, Tom Lehman, Corey Pavin, Kenny Perry, Tom Purtzer). All except Brooks are past champions at Colonial. Brooks, who will make his 28th appearance (26th consecutive) at the event, received a late sponsor exemption to the field when Tim Clark withdrew.

DID YOU KNOW?

• Russ Cochran, currently fifth on the Charles Schwab Cup standings and 939 points behind leader Tom Lehman, has a marginally better scoring average Lehman this season. In 18 rounds, Cochran has averaged 67.889 while Lehman's average is 67.895 from 19 rounds.

ON THIS DATE

5/17/81 -- Fuzzy Zoeller wins the Colonial National Invitation by four strokes over Hale Irwin in Fort Worth for his third PGA TOUR title.

5/17/87 -- Keith Clearwater cards back-to-back rounds of 64 on a 36-hole Sunday and defeats Davis Love III by three strokes to win the Colonial National Invitation event in Fort Worth. He became the third player in tournament history to win on his first appearance at Colonial.

5/18/80 -- In a battle between a pair of Texans, Bruce Lietzke emerges victorious at the Colonial National Invitation, nipping Ben Crenshaw by one stroke for the title. Lietzke had opened with a 63 at Colonial CC.

5/19/02 -- A 4-under-par 66 in the third round gave 45-year-old Nick Price a five-stroke edge at the MasterCard Colonial after 54 holes and he closed with a 3-under-par 67 to defeat David Toms and Kenny Perry for his second title in Fort Worth. The win made him the first of five-plus 40-year-olds to win in 2002.

5/19/00 -- Jim Colbert ties a Champions Tour record with eight straight birdies in the opening round of the TD Waterhouse Championship on his way to a 61.

5/19/85 -- Corey Pavin makes just two bogeys over 72 holes and cruises to a four-stroke win over Bob Murphy at the Colonial National Invitation for his second TOUR win.

5/20/84 -- Peter Jacobsen birdies the first extra hole to defeat good friend Payne Stewart to win the Colonial National Invitation.

5//22/88 -- Lanny Wadkins shoots a final-round 65 and birdies No. 18 to win the Colonial National Invitation in Fort Worth. He finishes one stroke in front of Mark Calcavecchia, Joey Sindelar and Ben Crenshaw, who closes with four straight birdies.

QUOTES TO NOTE

"Even though I'm 54 I feel like I hit it just as well as I did when I was 38." -- Mark O'Meara discusses the differences between now and then.

"It was designed to challenge the best shotmaking. If you hit it off line you were going to pay the penalty."-- Jerry Pate, the 1982 PLAYERS Champion, comments on the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass.

"It was like the Champions Tour Lite."-- ESPN.com's Gene Wojciechowski comments on the top-three finishers at THE PLAYERS Championship, K.J. Choi (41 this Thursday), David Toms (44) and Paul Goydos (46).

"I know you're all shocked."-- Mark O'Meara comments to the media after his first-round 66 at THE PLAYERS Championship.

"I want to be in the last group on Sunday again. I love playing golf but I don't love missing cuts and playing poorly." -- Brad Faxon, who has yet to make a cut in nine starts this year, looks forward to joining the Champions Tour when he turns 50 on August 1.

"It's like waiting for an old girlfriend, I guess. You keep thinking, 'What did I do wrong?'" -- Doug Ford comments on his induction via the Veterans category into the World Golf Hall of Fame last week.