Notes: Irwin gunning for Charles' top-10 record

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The Champions Tour heads north of the border to the Montreal Championship at Club de golf Le Fontainebleau in Quebec, Canada, June 27-July3. The purse is $1.8 million and the winner will receive $270,000 and 270 Charles Schwab Cup points. Last year, Larry Mize used an eagle and three consecutive birdies on the back nine to sneak ahead of John Cook for his first Champions Tour victory.

LAST WEEK

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• John Huston closed with a 7-under-par 65 and had just one bogey on his card as he cruised to a three-stroke victory for his first Champions Tour title at the Dick's Sporting Goods Open. It was just his third start on the Champions Tour.

Huston's win at the Dick's Sporting Goods Open comes just 25 days after turning 50, making him the 11th youngest (tied with Dale Douglass and Bruce Lietzke) winner in Champions Tour history.

• Hale Irwin's T10 finish at the Dick's Sporting Goods Open was the 203rd of his illustrious career, tying him with Bob Charles for the most top-10 finishes in Champions Tour history. It was Irwin's fifth top-10 finish in 2011.

• Joey Sindelar, from nearby Horseheads, finished T4 at the Dick's Sporting Goods Open in Endicott, N.Y. and was the only player in the field to post three sub-70 rounds (68-69-68).

• Peter Jacobsen posted his first top-10 finish since The Walmart First Tee Open at Pebble Bach in 2007 (T10) with his T6 finish at the Dick's Sporting Goods Open. Peter Senior also posted a T6 finish, his sixth top-10 this year.

• The Dick's Sporting Goods Open marked the 12th of 24 tournaments on the Champions Tour this season.

• Last week, Bob Tway caddied for his son, Kevin, at the Travelers Championship. Kevin was making his professional debut on the PGA TOUR and opened with rounds of 72-68 to miss the cut. Also missing the cut at the Travelers Championship were Champions Tour professionals Kenny Perry, Michael Allen and Corey Pavin, who recorded 18 pars in an opening-round 70 to be one of a dozen players to post a bogey-free first round.

• Bernhard Langer shot 76-79 to miss the cut at the BMW International Open on the European Tour.

• American Tim Thelen tied for second behind winner Des Smyth at the European Senior Tour's Van Lanschot Senior Open. It was Thelen's second start on Tour, having finished T3 a week earlier.

• World Golf Hall of Fame member Billy Casper, who is ranked 7th on the all-time win list with 51 PGA TOUR victories, celebrated his 80th birthday on June 24 last week. Phil Mickelson is Casper's nearest active challenger with 39 wins.

CHARLES SCHWAB CUP

• Tom Lehman failed to earn Charles Schwab Cup points last week, finishing outside the top-10 at the Dick's Sporting Goods Open (T15), but remains in the lead with 1,494 points. With his second-place finish at the DSGO, Nick Price closed the gap and is second with 1,053 points. Tom Watson is third with 850 points.

• Three players in their 60s are currently in the top-30 of the Charles Schwab Cup standings -- Tom Watson is third, Hale Irwin is 13th and Bob Gilder is 27th.

COMING UP

• Larry Mize picked up his first Champions Tour victory at last year's inaugural Montreal Championship.

• Last year, Tom Wargo birdied the final three holes at Club de golf Le Fontainebleau, known as "The Hat Trick", to shoot a first-round 65 and better his age by two strokes. It was the first time Wargo had bettered his age on the Champions Tour. He matched his age (68) earlier this year at the Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am. Wargo shared the first-round lead at the 2010 Montreal Championship with Russ Cochran who, as a kid, used to caddie for Wargo each year in a Paducah, Ky. tournament.

• Tom Lehman will be making his second appearance at the Montreal Championship after finishing T10 last year. A three-time winner in 2011, Lehman is bidding to become the first player 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.

• John Cook was runner-up at the 2010 Montreal Championship. Between then and now, Cook has posted three victories on the Champions Tour (2010 Charles Schwab Cup Championship, 2011 Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai, 2011 Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am).

• Canadian Rod Spittle earned a full 2011 exemption by winning the AT&T Championship in San Antonio last October. He's posted three top-10s this year, including a T2 at the Allianz Championship and a T3 at The Principal Charity Classic.

Spittle will be joined in the Montreal Championship by fellow Canadian's Jim Rutledge, Yvan Beauchemin and Daniel Talbot, all of whom competed in 2010. The trio will be playing on sponsor's exemptions. Rutledge has made six starts on the Champions Tour in 2011 with a best finish a T6 at the Allianz Championship. He also finished T10 at last week's Dick's Sporting Goods Open.

• This year's field includes Bob Gilder(1980), John Cook (1983), Wayne Levi (1990), David Frost (1993) and Hal Sutton (1999), all past winners of the Canadian Open.

• The Club de Golf Fontainebleau was the second-easiest course on Tour last year, with an average score of 70.01. Hualalai GC was the easiest venue in 2010, averaging 69.13.

• Michael Cammalleri of the Montreal Canadiens, Vincent Lecavalier of the Tampa Bay Lightning along with Montreal Canadiens legends Guy Carbonneau and Stéphane Richer will compete in the Hockey All-Star Skins Game on Friday, July 1 (Canada Day) after the opening round of the Montreal Championship. The special event will feature the players competing for $25,000, with all proceeds from the exhibition donated to the Birdies for Charity program, which benefits the Desjardins Foundation, Montreal Canadiens Children's Foundation and Golf Québec. During the inaugural 2010 Montreal Championship, the Birdies for Charity program raised more than $140,000.

• Golf Channel will televise all three rounds of the Montreal Championship. In addition, the tournament will be televised in Quebec on TVA, a French-language network in Canada.

• The NHL's Stanley Cup will be on display at Pebble Beach on July 4 to begin the Nature Valley First Tee Open at Pebble Beach. The public can have a photo taken with the trophy for a $20 donation per image with all proceeds going to The First Tee of Monterey County.

• Five-time PGA TOUR winner and television announcer Roger Maltbie turns 60 on June 30. Maltbie has made seven career starts with partner and fellow announcer Gary Koch in the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf (Raphael Division) and never finished outside the top three. The pair won the title in 2003, 2008 and 2009.

NUMBERS

90 -- The number of holes Hal Suttonplayed bogey-free since hole No. 4 of the Principal Charity Classic. Sutton bogeyed the par-5 fifth hole in the first round of the Dick's Sporting Goods Open to end his streak. The record is 98 holes by Morris Hatalskyin 2003.

4 -- The number of strokes by which Bernhard Langer (ACE Group Classic) and Tom Lehman (Mississippi Gulf Resort Classic) won, the most this season. John Huston won by three strokes at the Dick's Sporting Goods Open last week.

DID YOU KNOW?

• Mark Calcavecchia has appeared in the final group on the final day three times this season and finished fifth each time (ACE Group Classic, Regions Tradition and Principal Charity Classic).

• Billy Casper, who celebrated his 80thbirthday last week, was the first player in Champions Tour history to play a tournament without making a bogey (1987 Del E. Webb Arizona Classic). This feat has been achieved just 26 times in 944 events in Champions Tour history -- that's 2.75 per cent!! Three players went bogey-free for the week at the recent Greater Hickory Classic at Rock Barn (Loren Roberts, Hal Sutton and Peter Senior).

ON THIS DATE

• 6/27/04 -- Craig Stadler makes history near Boston, winning the Bank of America Championship the same day his son, Kevin, wins the Lake Erie Charity Classic on the Nationwide Tour.

• 7/3/59 -- At age 23, Gary Player claims the first of nine major titles on the PGA TOUR when he wins the British Open by two strokes at Muirfield.

QUOTES TO NOTE

• "You only have so many opportunities in your career, so every tournament means something." -- Tom Lehmanrecognizes the need to stay in the present and focus on the tournament at hand each week.

• "I'm more recognizable and the topic of conversation is almost exclusively about the 2009 British Open. This -- all for a guy who finished second. I'm humbled by the response. I was trying to win a golf tournament just like I did all my life." -- Tom Watson comments on how people respond to him when they meet him.

• "Hey, that's more valuable to me than you are." -- Nick Price referring to his beloved persimmon driver, while remembering what he told his wife (then girlfriend) many years ago after she laughed when he hit a tee shot and the club head flew off down the fairway.

• "When you're playing, sometimes you find calm and feel you have control. But when you're not driving the car, it's harder to relax in the passenger seat. The emotions are higher and lower because you are pulling so hard. Now I see what my wife (Sally) went through with me." -- Hale Irwin shares what it was like being a spectator, rather than a player, while following his son Steve at the U.S. Open.

• "He said he's going to stay four years? In four years I'll be 51. That sounds like a good deal for me." -- Paul Goydos encourages 19-year-old Patrick Cantlay, the No. 1 ranked amateur in the world who finished T24 at last week Travelers Championship, to stay in college and graduate. By the time he does, Goydos will likely be playing on the Champions Tour.