Not Looking for a Friendly Game

Hale Irwin will be 60 in June and the way he’s going, he just might shoot his age.

It would surprise few if he were to do that, and it would surprise nobody if he were to win the SBC Classic, the Champions Tour event that begins today at Valencia Country Club.

Irwin broke 70 for the first time when he was 14 and, since then, shooting subpar golf has become as much a part of his routine as waking up in the morning. And just as important.

“He’s not out here to make friends,” says Joe Inman, 57, a three-time winner of the event. “He’s out here to cut your heart out, and to let you look at it before you die.”

In other words, it’s not so much the golf Irwin enjoys, but the competition. And about the only thing surprising to the 50-ish players on the senior tour is that Irwin appears not to have mellowed at an age when most others have.

“Hale wants to win, he wants to beat you, he wants to play well, he wants to out-perform himself and he doesn’t let anyone get in his way,” says Mike McCullough, a two-time Champions Tour winner who turns 60 this month.

In four events this year, Irwin has already won twice. He claimed the Turtle Bay Championship in Hawaii, becoming the only golfer to win a PGA Tour-sanctioned event five consecutive times, and he won the Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am.

He finished second and third in the other events and has a commanding lead on both the money list, at $703,000, and in the points race for the 2005 Charles Schwab Cup. Dating to last season, he has 10 consecutive top-10 finishes, during which he is 104 under par, with 24 of 30 rounds in the 60s.

Last season he earned $3,028,304, breaking a Champions Tour money record he had set the previous season. On the Champions Tour alone, he has won a record $21,295,965 in the nearly 10 years he has been competing.

He has 42 Champions Tour victories, seven in major championships. Only Jack Nicklaus, with eight major titles, has more. Irwin has scored 16 of his victories since turning 55.

“As a golfer, he is the toughest, most competitive and one of the smartest people out here,” Inman says. “What I find amazing, and what all of us find amazing, is that he still has the drive to do it.”

What’s remarkable right now for Irwin, a three-time U.S. Open champion on the PGA Tour, is that he hardly practices because of back spasms.

“Golf is the hardest thing for it right now, so I’m not practicing as much, but I’m thinking about the game a great deal,” he said. “Maybe that shows with some of the results I’ve had.”

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CHAMPIONS TOUR

* What: SBC Classic

* When: Today-Sunday

* Where: Valencia Country Club (6,905 yards, par 72)

* Purse: $1.55 million. Winner’s share: $225,000

* Defending champion: Gil Morgan

* TV: Golf Channel (today-Sunday, 3-5:30 p.m.)

* Tickets: $15

* Next week: Toshiba Senior Classic in Newport Beach.