Loren Roberts won his third Champions Tour career title (2005 JELD-WEN Tradition, 2006 MasterCard Championship at Hualalai) in his eighth start on the circuit and claimed his third victory in his last six starts on the circuit dating back to the fall of last year. • Loren Roberts completed the Hawaii double on the Champions Tour by winning this year’s Turtle Bay Championship one week after claiming the MasterCard Championship at Hualalai. He became the first player to win his first two starts of the year since Larry Nelson in 2001 (MasterCard Championship, Royal Caribbean Classic) and just the third overall in Champions Tour history to win back-to-back events starting a season (Don January -- 1981 Michelob-Egypt Temple Senior Classic/Eureka Federal Savings Classic). • Loren Roberts became the first player since Hale Irwin at the 2004 Senior PGA Championship to win an event with an even-par final round. He became the first since Tom Purtzer at the 2003 SBC Classic to win with an eagle on the final hole. • Loren Roberts became the fourth wire-to-wire in tournament history and the first to lead start-to-finish since the event moved to Turtle Bay. Before Sunday, Bruce Fleisher was the last wire-to-wire winner in 1999 at Kaanapali on the island of Maui. • Loren Roberts earned 225 Charles Schwab Cup points for winning and has jumped out to an early lead in the season-long race. Roberts now has earned 515 Schwab Cup points and Don Pooley is second with 257 points. Tom Watson, last year’s Schwab Cup winner, is in third place with 167 points. At the end of the year, the winner of the Schwab Cup competition earns a $1 million annuity. • Loren Roberts’ check for $225,000 increased his 2006 official earnings to $515,000. If you add in $64,260 for finishing in a tie for 18th at the Sony Open in Hawaii, Roberts made $579,260 for his three-week trip to the Aloha State this year. • After carding a final-round 73 at last year’s U.S. Senior Open in Dayton, Loren Roberts now has reeled off 20 consecutive par/better rounds on the Champions Tour. His even-par 72 Sunday was the highest final-round score to win in tournament history and the highest finish by a winner on the Champions Tour since 2004. • Scott Simpson’s runner-up performance at the Turtle Bay Championship was his best effort on the circuit in just five career starts on the circuit. Simpson had finished tied for 18th twice last year after debuting at the SAS Championship near Raleigh last fall. • 63-year-old World Golf Hall of Famer Isao Aoki’s solo third-place at Turtle Bay was his first top-3 finish in a Champions Tour event since he finished second at the rain-shortened Royal Caribbean Classic in 2002. Aoki’s performance this week was the best among the nine former Sony Open in Hawaii champions in the field this week. • Jay Haas finished in a tie for seventh this week and now has run off seven consecutive top-10s on the Champions Tour dating back to last year’s Wal-Mart First Tee Open at Pebble Beach (tied for ninth). • Ben Crenshaw’s tie for seventh finish this week at the Turtle Bay Championship was the second-best finish of his Champions Tour career and was his first top-10 effort since the 2003 campaign. Crenshaw’s best-ever performance since turning 50 was a tie for fourth at the 2003 3M Championship in Minnesota. • Keith Fergus made a nice recovery to record just the fourth top-10 finish in 42 career starts on the Champions Tour. After opening with a 2-over 74, Fergus found himself in a tie for 45th. He rallied to shoot 8-under 136 for 36 holes on the weekend and finish tied for seventh. • Hale Irwin finished tied for 38th this week in his quest for a sixth consecutive Turtle Bay Championship title. His check for $7,500 raised his all-time earnings in Hawaii to $3,893,475. • Sunday’s field scoring average was 73.282, slightly lower than Saturday, but higher than Friday’s first round (73.218). The cumulative stroke average this year was 73.111 compared to 72.388 last year. In 2003, the field stroke average on the Palmer course was 73.988. This year, five players had three consecutive sub-par scores (Scott Simpson, Isao Aoki, Tom Watson, Don Pooley and Ben Crenshaw) at Turtle Bay but none of them won the event. • Japan’s Massy Kuramoto finished in a tie for 23rd in his first Champions Tour event, while David Ishii tied for 29th and Jack Ferenz finished in a tie for 57th. |
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