Notes: Roberts' title defense begins on 56th birthday

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The Champions Tour heads to Endicott, N.Y., for the Dick's Sporting Goods Open at En-Joie GC, June 20-26. The purse is $1.75 million and the winner will receive $262,500 and 263 Charles Schwab Cup points. Last year, Loren Roberts carded a back-nine 5-under-par 30 on the final day to win by one stroke from Fred Funk.

LAST WEEK

• Fred Funk played his first career PGA TOUR event at Congressional CC in 1982, the Kemper Open, finishing T51 and earning $947.20. Funk also finished T43 at the 1997 U.S. Open at Congressional, winning $10,491.20. Last week, Funk teed it up in the U.S. Open again at Congressional as the oldest player in the field, having turned 55 on Tuesday of tournament week. He missed the cut after a pair of 75s.

• Three-time U.S. Open winner Hale Irwin was in the gallery to watch his son, Steve, who missed the cut with 78-77. Sam Saunders, grandson of Arnold Palmer, also missed the cut with 74-75.

• Bernhard Langer was back in action for the first time after recovering from thumb surgery. Langer, the Champions Tour Player of the Year last season, finished T11 in the Berenberg Bank Masters on the European Senior Tour, a tournament he co-promotes with his brother Erwin, at the Cologne GC in Germany. Ian Woosnam shot 9-under to win the 54-hole event while American Tim Thelen finished third in his first European Senior Tour start.

• Joey Sindelar has been named Honorary Chairperson of the fifth Nationwide Children's Hospital Invitational, following in the footsteps of fellow Buckeye greats Jack Nicklaus, John Cook and Meg Mallon, and longtime former golf coach Jim Brown. The fourth-year Champions Tour member was a three-time All-American at Ohio State University and a member of the Buckeyes' 1979 NCAA championship winning team. OSU's Scarlet Course will host the July 21-24 event.

CHARLES SCHWAB CUP

• Tom Lehman, who currently leads the Charles Schwab Cup and money races, will be making his first appearance at the Dick's Sporting Goods Open. A three-time winner so far in 2011, Lehman played at the B.C. Open four times in his PGA TOUR career, making one cut in four starts (T66 in 1983). He is attempting to become the first to win Player of the Year honors on all three Tours. He was the Nationwide Tour Player of the Year in 1991 and the PGA TOUR Player of the Year in 1996.

COMING UP

• Loren Roberts will celebrate his 56th birthday on Friday's opening round of the Dick's Sporting Goods Open, where he will be attempting to defend his title. No player has defended a title at En-Joie GC in the four-year history of the tournament.

• Senior PGA champion Tom Watson is scheduled to appear at En Joie GC for the first time since 1976 when he finished T21 at the B.C. Open on the PGA TOUR. The price of gas was $0.59 a gallon back then.

• Fred Funk has recorded back-to-back runner-up finishes in his last two starts at the Dick's Sporting Goods Open (2009-2010). Funk, the 1996 B.C. Open champion, was also second in both 1999 and 2002 at En-Joie.

• With 202 career top-10 finishes, Hale Irwin is just one shy of tying Bob Charles for the lead in that category in Champions Tour history.

• Hal Sutton comes into the Dick's Sporting Goods Open with a string of 86 consecutive holes without a bogey. Sutton's last bogey came at No. 4 in the second round of the Principal Charity Classic. The record is 98 holes by Morris Hatalsky in 2003.

• Some of the activities during the week of the Dick's Sporting Goods Open include a concert by Maroon 5, the annual Wendy's Walk for Kids, a women's golf clinic conducted by World Golf Hall of Fame member Donna Caponi, and a Long-Drive Exhibition by Jamie Sadlowski.

• Champions Tour professional Bob Tway was the first- and second-round leader two weeks ago at the Greater Hickory Classic at Rock Barn after opening 63-67. A final-round 71 saw him fall back to a T8 finish. This week, Tway will caddie for his son Kevin at the Travelers Championship when he makes his PGA TOUR debut as a professional.

NUMBERS

45 -- The record number of career Champions Tour victories for Hale Irwin. He also qualified, as an amateur, for the U.S. Open 45 years ago and he was 45 when he won his third U.S. Open at Medinah.

DID YOU KNOW?

• Nick Price, the 2011 Toshiba Classic champion, is the only Champions Tour winner this year to feature in the top-10 of the three major statistical categories during the week of his victory -- 1st in Fairways Hit, T10 in Greens In Regulation and T6 in Putts.

ON THIS DATE

6/21/65 -- Gary Player completes the career Grand Slam at age 29 when he wins the U.S. Open in an 18-hole playoff with Kel Nagle. Player shoots a 71, three better than Nagle at Bellerive CC in St. Louis.

6/22/80 -- Don January captures the first Champions Tour event when he finishes two strokes in front of Mike Souchak at the Atlantic City CC.

6/25/00 -- Lee Trevino becomes just the second player to win in five different decades (Gary Player the other) when he defeats Walter Hall by two strokes at the Cadillac NFL Golf Classic in New Jersey. It is also the last of 29 Champions Tour titles.

6/26/82 -- Bob Gilder makes a third-round double eagle on the 509-yard 18th hole (3-wood) and goes on to post a 19-under-par total of 261 and is a five-stroke victory over Tom Kite and Peter Jacobsen at Westchester CC in New York.

QUOTES TO NOTE

"I thought, 'Now wait a minute here. You're 66 years old ... you haven't carried a bag in I don't know how long, except from the garage to the house.'" -- Three-time U.S. Open champion Hale Irwin briefly contemplates caddying for his son, Steve, at last week's U.S. Open before deciding against it.

"During that time, for me, it didn't even seem hard at the time. When things are going good it seems pretty simple at times." -- Gil Morgan comments on being the first player in history to reach 12-under at a U.S. Open, which he did in 1992. Eight years later, Tiger Woods did it at Pebble Beach. Rory McIlroy achieved it last week at Congressional.