IRWIN CHAMPION OF CHAMPIONS.

Byline: DAVE SHELBURNE Golf

The Champions Tour gets its annual infusion of youth this year with a high-profile class of rookies, as U.S. Open champions Curtis Strange and Scott Simpson, British Open champion Greg Norman and PGA Tour putting whiz Loren Roberts join the 50-and-over tour.

One of the first things they're likely to learn is respect for their elders, especially for seemingly ageless Hale Irwin, who turns 60 in June and celebrated by dominating the first full-field event of the season at Kahuku, Hawaii.

Irwin's event-record 16-under-par 200 in the Turtle Bay Championship was achieved with rounds of 67-66-67, the first leaving most of the field in his wake and the last dusting his nearest final-round pursuers.

Runner-up Dana Quigley, playing in the final group with Irwin, started Sunday three strokes off the pace. He shot 69 and wound up five shots back, then said no one could have beaten Irwin that day.

It seems to be a yearly story in this tournament, which Irwin has won five consecutive years and six times overall. The event formerly was known as the Kaanapali Classic.

In running his tournament streak to five, the three-time U.S. Open champion broke a men's professional tour record for consecutive victories in one event. He shared that record with Tiger Woods, Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen and Tom Morris Jr., whose streak of four British Open titles started in 1868.

More than a century later, on a much warmer island, Irwin ran his Champions Tour records to 41 victories and $20.9 million by hitting every green and missing just one fairway in his final round.

Irwin might be in the twilight of his career, but he's hardly fading and seems to be having more trouble with an occasionally balky back than with a senior tour that has become progressively tougher while playing longer courses.

He won his third Champions Tour Player of the Year award at age 57. Last year, despite a tender lower back and assorted shoulder and neck pain, Irwin won the tour's points-based Charles Schwab Cup championship for the second time in as many years.

He entered this season with seven senior tour majors, having won all but the Jeld-Wen Tradition, and placed third in the tour's season-opening tournament of past champions despite a six-week layoff. Then came the overpowering performance at Turtle Bay, where opening-round playing partner Jim Thorpe offered this Sunday assessment, to The Golf Channel:

``The bottom line is we just can't beat him.''

Irwin has won 61 events in 37 years on the PGA Tour and Champions Tour.

Thorpe added that, given the right conditions, senior-tour players might not be the only ones trying to chase down Irwin.

``As well as he's playing, if he finds the right golf course over there, I think he could still win on the regular tour,'' Thorpe said.

So much for the limitations of age, or the once widely held opinion that senior tour players hit a wall at 55.

``Fifty-five is like a speed limit,'' Irwin said at Sunday's award presentation. ``It used to be 55. Now it's 60, 65.''

--Irwin at Valencia: Irwin is among the players who have committed to play in the Champions Tour's SBC Classic scheduled for March 11-13 at Valencia Country Club. Other early entries include defending champion Gil Morgan, Ray Floyd, Ben Crenshaw and Strange, who turned 50 on Sunday and will make his senior tour debut in the Feb. 18-20 Ace Group Classic at Naples, Fla.

Ticket information: [phone] or [phone].

--Toshiba Senior Classic: Irwin will bid for his third title in the Toshiba Senior Classic, scheduled for March 18-20 at Newport Beach Country Club, where he won in 1998 and 2002. Tom Watson, Fuzzy Zoeller, Floyd, Strange and defending champion Tom Purtzer are among the other early entries in that event.

Ticket information: [phone].

--Shorter no problem: Angeles National Golf Club in Sunland is having no trouble attracting players, despite the loss of its 17th green and 18th teebox during last month's rainstorms.

The course, which normally plays to 7,140 yards and a par of 72 from the back tees, will play at a maximum 6,521 yards and par 70 until green and teebox rebuilding is completed. With the conversion of a practice green, reshaped Angeles National has no temporary greens, and reaction was positive during capacity play last weekend.

``The response has been really good to the temporary 18, and we are selling out the house,'' said Vic Castro, marketing and tournament director at the Nicklaus Design course.

While storm damage is being repaired, the course - which now plays with two par-3s, two par-5s and five par-4s on its front nine and four par-3s, two par-5s and three par-4s on its back nine - is offering reduced rates.

Monday-Friday play is $60, and twilight (after 12:30 p.m.) is $40. Saturday-Sunday-holiday play is $80 (twilight, $60).

One more time: Paul Holtby on Monday qualified for the Feb. 17-20 Nissan Open at Riviera Country Club, advancing from a PGA Tour qualifying tournament for the fourth time in his past four tries. Holtby, a teaching pro at Tom Barber Golf Center in Moorpark, has qualified for the Buick Invitational and Nissan twice each in his past four attempts. He got his latest berth with a 1-under-par 70 at San Gabriel Country Club, finishing second to David Podas of Bel Air Country Club, who shot 69.

CAPTION(S):

photo, box

Photo:

HALE IRWIN

Box:

ON THE GREEN

BY DAVE SHELBURNE