A lot of people thought Irwin was finished last year when he failed to win even once, a first for him since joining the Champions Tour. Most assumed it was a tricky back that was the culprit - he has suffered repeatedly with his spine the past 4-5 years. But Irwin said it was his putting that ultimately submarined him.
He has always been one of the better putters in the game. But last year he was woefully inconsistent, as many golfers become when they reach the 60-age figure. He didn't win for a 15-month stretch, and he knew exactly why - he could reach the green as well as any of them, but the ball refused to get in the confound hole. We've seen it so many times before, to the greatest of professionals. And here is was again.
But Irwin is a rare bird indeed. In the offseason he worked and sweated and putted at his home in the Phoenix area. And - miracle of all miracles! - he won this one with his putter, just like old times.
"I putted like Ben Crenshaw and Loren Roberts put together the last two days," he said on the Golf Channel, still stunned by what he himself had accomplished. He had taken on the best of the best and won easily - something that just doesn't seem possible when you pass the big 6-0.
But Irwin is a peculiar animal in that he is driven - driven not just to show up, yuk it up with the gents and play a pleasant round with the Super Seniors - but driven to beat the stuffings out of the younger men. He doesn't recognize that 61 is getting dangerously close to GeezerVille; he believes that as long as there are men waiting on the tee to challenge him, then he ought to play them straight-up, without any compensation for being of an advanced age.
Photo: © Chris Condo/WireImage |
| Hale Irwin took only 75 putts and his 25.00 average was the best of anyone in the field. |
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And last year was an eye-opener. He WAS getting old. He was beginning to lax into things that he never done before. He had to decide whether he was going to keep doing them, whether he was going to just show up and go through the motions, or whether he would - if possible - change. And, you knew the answer would be - change it was.
At the age of 61, he revamped the way he played this game. He got much more shoulder action into his putting stroke. He changed his driver, his 6-iron. He stopped fretting, became positive once again, and decided to just forget the problems which have beset his back.
"Last year," Irwin said, "it wasn't that I wasn't hitting the shots. I was just wasting shots, silly things, putting problems - which is concentration. I just wasn't focusing.
"Perhaps it's an attitude change. You re-examine everything over the winter and kind of step back and think about your problems. I was just trying so many things last year, it was confusing. You'd think after all these years I wouldn't do that - and I did."
"Hale," said Jim Thorpe, "was just determined that we weren't going to beat him."
And Irwin, a three-time U.S. Open champion on the toughest of courses, won for the 45th time on the Champions Tour. Hey, it's not so unusual that he won as an older guy. He won his last Open when he was 46 years of age.
In a league in which the No. 2 man (Lee Trevino) has 29 wins, Irwin was winning for the 45th time. You think you'd better "get'em" before you're 55" on the senior circuit? Irwin has won 18 times since he passed that defining age - and only 11 men have won more than that at ANY age.
"There is still life in my golf game, witness this week," Irwin said. "There's still fire in my belly to do that and maybe that's more important than anything else. Rather than saying, 'Well gosh, I'm closer to 62 than 61, I better start slowing down,' I don't accept that. I'm still trying to learn."
He's a hard-headed cuss, isn't he? He isn't fitting the popular conception of the mellow gaffer who plays the Champions Tour and has passed his 60th birthday - at all. He still thinks he can win!
"What I had hoped to accomplish," Irwin said, "I accomplished in a big way this week." Stand back, folks, Grandpa is acting again like he is a world-class senior golfer.
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