FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM Hale Irwin reacted after missing a putt on the 18th green during yesterday's final round.

Irwin adds to isle
accomplishments

What more can you say about Hale Irwin?

After running away from the field and capturing the Turtle Bay Championship yesterday on Oahu's North Shore, golf's iron man became the first player to win a PGA Tour-sanctioned event five straight times.

Equally remarkable, he recorded his 41st Champions Tour victory, a feat he has accomplished in just a decade. Along the way, he has amassed 100 top-three finishes and 170 top-10 finishes in 230 starts.

He now has at least one victory in each of his 11 seasons on the Champions Tour, including seven victories in Hawaii. He also won the 1981 Hawaiian Open, when he was playing the regular PGA Tour, for a total of eight.

Irwin's first-place check of $225,000 increased his Champions Tour career earnings to almost $21 million and his all-time earnings to almost $27 million.

Finally, his five-stroke win was the largest in the tournament's history, and his 54-hole total of 16-under-par 200 set a tournament record. Not surprisingly, Irwin held the old record of 11-under 205, having won every Turtle Bay event since the tournament moved to the North Shore from Kaanapali, Maui, in 2001.

Irwin not only continues to defy time -- he will be 60 years old this June -- he is also defying the injuries that come with time. He has been battling lower back pain and assorted shoulder and neck pain since the end of last season, and hadn't pick up a club for six weeks prior to coming to Hawaii for the MasterCard Championship two weeks ago.

"I can't tell you how lucky I am," he said yesterday. "I got a third last week at Hualalai and a first this week. Coming over and having two weeks like that after not playing is really pretty amazing."

More amazing still is the fact that Irwin's victory came on one of the toughest courses on the Champions Tour. As second-place finisher Dana Quigley put it, "Hale was on another planet this week. He played really, really well. ... This is a good, tough golf course. You really have to be playing well to keep it together here."

But as good as Irwin played, he was still limited. After Saturday's second round, when his back began acting up, he said, "I'm really not swinging quite the way I want. I have to be careful. For instance, I haven't practiced after any round since I've been here. There is a limit to what I can do, and there are some shots that I don't even try. I work around the problem another way."

Fortunately, Irwin manages his game so well that he can win even when he's not in top form.

Yesterday, he had two goals. "I wanted to hit a lot of fairways and greens, and I did that," he said. "I hit every fairway but one. I hit every green. I also wanted to get off to a good start, and I did that. I didn't create a lot of trouble for myself. I kept myself in the game."

Irwin got off to such a good start -- firing a 5-under 31 on the front nine -- that the tournament was all but decided by the 11th hole.

As for keeping himself in the game, it looks like we'll be seeing a lot more of Irwin in the years to come.

"People say, 'Gosh you can't do this at 60,' and I'll say, 'Why not?' " Irwin said. "Unless somebody has a really good reason, I see no reason to accept the premise that it's not do-able."

Indeed, look for Hale Irwin to keep getting it done.