PARKER — Hale Irwin is the Champions Tour’s all-time leader with 45 victories, and, beginning next week, he will have another chance to make history. Irwin turns 65 on Thursday. No player 65 or older has won a Champions Tour event.
“It would be significant, sure,” Irwin said. “I had to get people past the ‘over-55’ (hurdle). Now I’ll try to do that. I’m hitting good shots. But between the ears, it’s a tornado. I just have to settle everything down. I thought I had some traction the last couple of weeks, but I’m starting to slip again.
“If I make the cut here, it would be an absolute miracle,” he added following a 2-over 74 during Friday’s morning session that left him in a group at 6-over for 36 holes.
Irwin safely made it for the weekend as the cutline was 7-over. For the weekend, 81 players advanced.
About to hang them up
Bruce Summerhays of Farmington, Utah, one of the oldest players in the tournament at age 66, said he will retire from competitive golf after playing in next week’s Champions Tour event in West Des Moines, Iowa.
But he still has some work to do here, having made the cut at 4-over-par with consecutive 74s. Summerhays was a longtime club professional before joining the Champions Tour in 1994. He has three Champions Tour victories, including the 2004 Kroger Classic when, at 60 years, 6 months and 9 days, he became 10th-oldest winner of a Champions Tour event in history.
“We have been called to serve,” said Summerhays, who beginning on June 28 will head the LDS Church’s Tampa, Fla., mission with his wife, Carolyn. “We have been extremely blessed, playing 17 years on the senior tour. So we wanted to give back.”
Missing the short stuff
Thursday’s co-leader Robin Freeman followed up his first-round 66 with a 3-over 75 on Friday. For his second round, Freeman hit just eight of 14 fairways.
“Out here, you have to be spot-on with your drives,” Freeman said.
Animal tales and trails
Golf-course architect Bill Coore, who co-designed Colorado Golf Club with Ben Crenshaw, said he looks for wild-animal trails before determining how holes of a new golf course should be routed. Colorado Golf Course has a thriving deer population.
“Animals know the easiest way around,” Coore said.
Younger Tway coming to Denver
Bob Tway confirmed Friday following his round that his son, Oklahoma State golfer Kevin Tway, will play in the 107th Trans-Mississippi Championship, July 12-15 at Denver Country Club.
“Kevin is very talented,” the 1986 PGA Championship winner said of his son. “In college, confidence-wise and maturity-wise, he’s doing real well.”
Quick learner
Taiwan’s Chien Soon Lu speaks almost no English, but, through an interpreter, he was spot-on when asked Friday about the key to playing Colorado Golf Club.
“The only way to play this course is to put the driver in the fairway,” Lu said. “Otherwise, you’re in big trouble.”
A senior rookie at age 50, Lue enters today’s round well up the leader board at 4-under.
