Champions Tour Insider: Five things I hope to see

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Chip Beck is one of three players to shoot a 59 on the PGA TOUR. Will someone do the same on the Champions Tour?

The Champions Tour scoring record is 60.

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That's one stroke shy of golf's magic number. A score of 59 has been achieved three times on the PGA TOUR but never on the Champions Tour.

It's time for that to change.

Of the five things I want to see happen on the Champions Tour in 2009, somebody finally breaking the barrier and shooting 59 tops my list.

1. There is nothing quite so fascinating or captivating in golf -- or rare -- as the quest for 59. The build-up is riveting and the golf unparalleled as someone fixes his sights on making history.

The Champions Tour single-round record is 60. It is shared by six golfers. Isao Aoki was the first to do it in 1997. Walter Morgan and Bruce Fleisher were next in 2002, followed in 2003 by Jim Thorpe and in 2004 by Tom Purtzer. Craig Stadler was the most recent in 2005 at the Blue Angels Classic.

Morgan and Purtzer were 11-under-par when they shot 60; the others accomplished the feat on par 70 layouts.

With scores trending lower on the Champions Tour, a 59 is getting closer. I don't say this loosely because shooting 59 is one of golf's great wonders. It requires skill and nerve. But how much fun would it be to see it on the Champions Tour?

For the record, those who shot 59 on the PGA TOUR are Al Geiberger (1977, Memphis Classic), Chip Beck (1991, Las Vegas Invitational), and David Duval (1999, Bob Hope Chrysler Classic).

2. Hale Irwin has won 45 times in his Champions Tour career. Now 63, he is the winningest player ever on the Champions Tour.

One more victory would make the three-time U.S. Open winner the oldest ever to win on this tour. There would be no better way for Irwin to celebrate his extraordinary career. That's I want to see -- No. 46.

3. In 2004, Bernhard Langer and Hal Sutton squared off as opposing Ryder Cup captains at Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Township, Mich.

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Hale Irwin is chasing another record.

Langer's European side had a banner week at Sutton's expense, routing the Americans, 18 ˝-9 ˝. Now that the United States has regained the Ryder Cup, thanks to a glorious victory last September at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, the sting isn't quite so painfu l.

But it would be fascinating just the same to see Langer and Sutton square off.

Everybody loves a good, old-fashioned duel in the sun, like the one Irwin and Gil Morgan staged at the Senior Players Championship in 1998. At the time, they wore the badges in a two-sheriff town and they were the dominant forces at the TPC Michigan in Dearborn.

They were paired in the final group of Saturday's third round in the Champions Tour major. Irwin walked onto the first tee with a brown paper bag. Out of it he pulled two water pistols.

Irwin would say later that the purpose of the water pistols was to allow the golfers to cool themselves off in the sweltering summer heat but everybody knew better. Irwin was setting up a western-style shoot-out. Morgan won that duel. It was great fun, not to mention drama, for everybody. Morgan was the last man standing on that occasion but Irwin returned to Dearborn to win the Senior Players the following year.

I want to see another shoot-out and Langer and Sutton, who plans on playing a full Champions Tour schedule as a rookie, would make the perfect antagonists this time around.

4. How is it that Ben Crenshaw or Curtis Strange -- both multiple major champions -- still haven't won on the Champions Tour? It's hard to figure that one but it's going to change in 2009.

Between them, Crenshaw (19) and Strange (17) won 36 times on the PGA TOUR. Crenshaw is a two-time Masters champion, his second Green Jacket in 1995 being his last victory. Strange won the U.S. Open back-to-back in 1988 and 1989. The second U.S. Open triumph also was Strange's last victory on the PGA TOUR.

I want to see a victory from one or both of them this year.

5. Tim Simpson won four times on the PGA TOUR and there's plenty of evidence to suggest there would have been many more if Simpson hadn't been plagued by a series of physical ailments.

Renown as a terrific ball-striker, Simpson's career came to a screeching interruption when he contracted Lyme Disease on a 1991 hunting trip and was debilitated by the neurological pathologic condition that resulted. He underwent brain and spinal fusion surgeries.

Since joining the Champions Tour in 2006, the Georgian has come close to winning again. His best finish in 2008 was a tie for second at the Ginn Championship at Hammock Beach Resort and the FedEx Kinko's Classic. In all, he had five top-10 finishes and qualified for the season-ending championship for the top 30 money winners.

Simpson has paid his dues. He's ready to win. And I'm ready to see him win.

Champions Tour Insider Notes:

• Jeff Sluman ranked eighth or better in four key statistical areas in the season-opening event in Hawaii. He was first in total driving, fourth in driving distance, tied for fifth in greens in regulation and eighth in putting average.

• Only one other golfer, Langer, the winner, was top 10 in all four. Langer was second in putting average, total driving and driving distance and tied for 10th in greens in regulation. Andy Bean, the runner-up, came close -- he missed the top 10 in only driving distance where he finished 11th.

• Tom Purtzer was the distance king with 309.5 yards. There was a gap of 6.8 yards to Langer at No. 2. The only bigger gap was between No. 30 (Crenshaw, 270.2 yards) and No. 31 (Gary Player, 262 yards) -- or 8.2 yards between them.

• Twenty golfers, or more than half the field, averaged better than 70 percent greens in regulation, led by Bean, John Cook, Gil Morgan and Purtzer at 81.48 percent. Only those four were above 80 percent.