ASSOCIATED PRESS Gil Morgan double-bogeyed the 18th hole yesterday to fall three shots off the pace.

Good judgment
a plus on No. 18

The 18th hole at the Arnold Palmer Course at Turtle Bay has always separated the contenders from the pretenders on the Champions Tour -- and it did again yesterday on Oahu's North Shore.

As the second round of the Turtle Bay Championship was coming to a close and the final two groups were playing the par-5 18th, a single shot separated Hale Irwin, Gil Morgan and Allen Doyle.

Moments later, everything changed.

Morgan, who was tied for the lead with Irwin at 10 under, stumbled badly, finishing with a double bogey, while Irwin birdied and Doyle escaped with a par. When the dust finally cleared, Irwin had a two-shot lead over Doyle and Morgan was tied for third -- a distant three shots to the rear.

"It's a great finishing hole with a deceptively long second shot over the water," said Irwin, who went for the green in two and managed to make it across. "When you're back in the fairway, you can't feel the wind that's coming across the lake. You look for it, but you just don't see it."

The par-5 is a risk-and-reward hole where you can make an eagle as easily as you can a double bogey. At 539 yards, it can be reached in two -- but only if you hit two well-played shots and manage to avoid all the water.

Off the tee, there's water on the left. And from the fairway, there is a large lake that you have to carry to reach the putting surface. Morgan found the lake left off the tee. Doyle failed to clear the lake fronting the green. Only Irwin managed to avoid both.

Doyle, who finished ahead of the others, was extremely fortunate. When he failed to clear the water on his second shot, he incurred a penalty and was forced to go back and play a pitch across the lake. He left that shot 25 feet short of the hole and was grousing like a bear until he rolled in the putt to salvage par.

Afterward, he said that he and his caddie had a mix-up on the yardage on the second shot. "If I knew I had the yardage that I actually had, I probably wouldn't have gone for it," he said. "I had a little bit of a downhill lie, and it was tight. I hit a low ball, so I like to have a little cushion underneath it to get the ball up. ... But, hey, we made a five and a par is not that bad."

Morgan was not so fortunate. He found the water left off the tee, incurred a penalty shot, and then laid up short of the green. His ensuing pitch, however, sailed long -- into the back bunker -- and from there it took him three more to get down. By the time he finished, his chances to contend in today's final round were greatly diminished.

Irwin, who has won all three Turtle Bay titles since the tournament moved to the North Shore from Kaanapali, Maui, in 2001, proved to be the only smart player. But even he barely escaped disaster. Standing back in the fairway, he was debating whether to hit a 16-degree or 19-degree fairway wood on his second shot. He wisely chose the former.

"I went with one extra club just to be sure I had enough," he said. "When I hit it, I thought it was going to be well into the green. And when I saw that it barely made it across, I was glad that I had hit it solidly. If I had hit the other club, I wouldn't have made it."

But Irwin did make it, and if he wins today, that shot may prove to be the deciding factor.