Champions Tour
Irwin qualified to play on the over-50 Senior PGA Tour (now Champions Tour) in 1995, and enjoyed even greater success at this level than he did on the PGA Tour. Through the 2011 season, he is the career leader in wins and earnings with 45 victories and over $26 million. Irwin won three consecutive PGA Seniors' Championship's between 1996 to 1998, including a 12-stroke victory in the 1997 tournament, which is the largest ever margin of victory in a 72-hole Champions Tour event. Irwin's nine victories in 1997 tied the Senior Tour record set by Peter Thomson in 1985.
Irwin won the U.S. Senior Open in 1998 and 2000 for a career total of five USGA titles. Irwin is the oldest player to finish in the top five in a senior major, with a third-place finish at the 2012 Senior PGA Championship at the age of 66.
In 2000, Irwin was ranked as the 19th greatest golfer of all time by Golf Digest magazine.
Read more about this topic: Hale Irwin
Famous quotes containing the words champions and/or tour:
“Did all the lets and bars appear
To every just or larger end,
Whence should come the trust and cheer?
Youth must its ignorant impulse lend—
Age finds place in the rear.
All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys,
The champions and enthusiasts of the state:”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Do you know I believe that [William Jennings] Bryan will force his nomination on the Democrats again. I believe he will either do this by advocating Prohibition, or else he will run on a Prohibition platform independent of the Democrats. But you will see that the year before the election he will organize a mammoth lecture tour and will make Prohibition the leading note of every address.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)