Senior Pga Championship

Aronimink Golf Club, which relinquished its opportunity to host the 1993 PGA Championship more than a decade ago because it felt it could not comply with minority-membership guidelines at that time, has been selected as the site of the 2003 Senior PGA Championship, the PGA of America announced yesterday. The Newtown Square club, designed by legendary architect Donald Ross and opened in 1928, served as host for the 1962 PGA Championship, which was won by Gary Player. The golf course underwent extensive renovations from August 2000 through March, with greens, tees and fairways all redone with new bent grass.

Hale Irwin birdied the 18th hole yesterday to win the weather-plagued Senior PGA Championship in Louisville, Ky., by one stroke over Jay Haas. Irwin led after each round and finished at 8-under 276 to win the event for the fourth time. He won it 3 years in a row starting in 1996. Irwin, who will turn 59 on Thursday, was the oldest winner of the event since Pete Cooper won in 1976 at age 61. Haas, playing in his first senior event after turning 50 in December, missed a 10-foot birdie putt on 18 as co-leader Irwin watched from the fairway.

Rick Holanda, the man whose job it is to put Aronimink Golf Club's course in pristine shape for the Senior PGA Championship, rolled a Titleist across the ninth green one day last week and nodded his approval. "The PGA wants the greens at 11 1/2 on the Stimpmeter," said Holanda, golf course superintendent at Aronimink, referring to a crude but effective device for measuring the speed of the greens. "I'm going to try to convince them to let me take them to 12. I mean, our members play them at 12. " With only three weeks to go before Fuzzy Zoeller, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and the rest of the field of 144 of the game's elder statesmen arrive at Aronimink, it is getting close to crunch time.

Tiger Woods' AT&T National will be played at its Congressional Country Club home this week but will be played at Aronimink Golf Club in 2010 and 2011 as Congressional is shut down to prepare for the 2011 U.S. Open. 2009: Congressional, Bethesda, Md. Dates: Tomorrow through Sunday The course: Par 70, 7,255 yards About Congressional: It opened in 1924. Course architect is Devereux Emmet. It was redesigned by Robert Trent Jones Sr. in 1957, and again by Rees Jones in 1989.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Japan's Kiyoshi Murota shot a 6-under-par 66 Thursday to overshadow stars such as Mark O'Meara and Tom Watson and grab the first-round lead in the weather-plagued Senior PGA Championship. After a 90-minute delay at the start of the round and a later suspension of play that lasted more than three hours, half the field was still on the course when darkness fell. Those 78 players will hit Valhalla Golf Club early Friday to complete the first round. Murota had a 1-shot edge over alternate Trevor Dodds, with former Masters and British Open winner O'Meara another stroke back at 68. Watson shot a 70.   PGA Tour IRVING, Texas - Jeff Overton shot a bogey-free, 6-under 64 to take the first-round lead at the Byron Nelson Championship, a stroke ahead of Ryan Palmer.

This week, Annika Sorenstam will play in the McDonald's LPGA Championship at DuPont Country Club in Wilmington, giving fans a chance to see up close the first woman in 58 years to compete in a PGA Tour event. Twenty-seven miles away, former PGA heroes such as Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player are to compete in the Senior PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Delaware County. That's two major championships over the same four days at golf courses on either side of the Pennsylvania-Delaware state line.

Senior golf got just what it needed yesterday, the return of the Big Three. For at least a day, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player were again on center stage. The 71-year-old Palmer shot his age, Nicklaus, 61, matched his best round of the year in relation to par with a 4-under-par 68 and Player, 65, had a 70 as the trio stole all the attention in the first round of the Senior PGA Championship. You almost had to feel sorry for Jim Thorpe, who was hardly noticed in grabbing the lead with six birdies in a 67 on the tree-lined Ridgewood (N.J.

Kiyoshi Murota shot a 5-under-par 67 yesterday to take a four-stroke lead in the Senior PGA Championship over a glittering scoreboard that includes Nick Price, Hale Irwin and Tom Watson. The 55-year-old touring pro and golf teacher from Japan followed an opening 66 to stand at 11-under 133 in the Champions Tour's major tournament at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky. Price was one of 78 players who had to return to the course yesterday morning to complete the first round because of weather delays.

The Senior PGA Tour is now called the Champions Tour. But under either name, it won't have a tournament in the Philadelphia market next year. The event known most recently as the Instinet Classic is not on the 2003 schedule because no title sponsor came forward. It is the first time since the tournament's inception in 1985 that it won't be around for contestants 50 and older. However, tour members will compete in the Philadelphia area next year at the Senior PGA Championship, the first major of the season.

The tournament is still almost a year away, but the campaign to create excitement for next year's Senior PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club has officially begun. A "natural fit" is how Roger Warren, secretary of the PGA of America, which stages the tournament, described Aronimink last week during a kickoff luncheon at the posh and private club in Newtown Square, Delaware County. The Senior PGA, set for June 5-8, is one of the biggest tournaments for the 50-plus circuit, along with the U.S. Senior Open.

Kiyoshi Murota shot a 5-under-par 67 yesterday to take a four-stroke lead in the Senior PGA Championship over a glittering scoreboard that includes Nick Price, Hale Irwin and Tom Watson. The 55-year-old touring pro and golf teacher from Japan followed an opening 66 to stand at 11-under 133 in the Champions Tour's major tournament at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky. Price was one of 78 players who had to return to the course yesterday morning to complete the first round because of weather delays.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Japan's Kiyoshi Murota shot a 6-under-par 66 Thursday to overshadow stars such as Mark O'Meara and Tom Watson and grab the first-round lead in the weather-plagued Senior PGA Championship. After a 90-minute delay at the start of the round and a later suspension of play that lasted more than three hours, half the field was still on the course when darkness fell. Those 78 players will hit Valhalla Golf Club early Friday to complete the first round. Murota had a 1-shot edge over alternate Trevor Dodds, with former Masters and British Open winner O'Meara another stroke back at 68. Watson shot a 70.   PGA Tour IRVING, Texas - Jeff Overton shot a bogey-free, 6-under 64 to take the first-round lead at the Byron Nelson Championship, a stroke ahead of Ryan Palmer.

Haverford's Alexandra Frazier acquired a new nickname this week during the U.S. Senior Women's Amateur Championship in Fort Myers, Fla. They called her "64. " It fit. Frazier, 52, was the 64th and final contestant to make it into the match-play field at Fiddlesticks Country Club. She defeated the medalist in the first round and the defending champion in the quarterfinals on her way to Thursday's title match against Mina Hardin of Fort Worth, Texas. The story went without the ultimate ending; Frazier lost, 2 and 1, in her bid to become the first player in U.S. Golf Association history to win a championship as a 64th seed.

Sean O'Hair had been looking forward to playing at home, practicing his occupation as a PGA Tour golfer in front of family, friends and Philadelphia-area fans. But O'Hair is questionable for Thursday's start of the AT&T National at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square after having withdrawn from Wednesday's pro-am following 12 holes with a back injury. O'Hair, an Aronimink member from West Chester, said he initially injured his back last Thursday while working out. He started the pro-am on the back nine but rode in after playing No. 3 at Aronimink.

The grounds of Congressional Country Club appear to be bursting at the seams this week. Ropes, fences, hospitality tents, grandstands, portable toilets, and refreshment stands dot the landscape to accommodate spectators attending what is popularly known as "Tiger's Tournament. " The AT&T National Hosted by Tiger Woods, the official name of the $6 million PGA Tour event, begins a third successful season here tomorrow before it takes to the road for the next two years, to Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square.

Tiger Woods' AT&T National will be played at its Congressional Country Club home this week but will be played at Aronimink Golf Club in 2010 and 2011 as Congressional is shut down to prepare for the 2011 U.S. Open. 2009: Congressional, Bethesda, Md. Dates: Tomorrow through Sunday The course: Par 70, 7,255 yards About Congressional: It opened in 1924. Course architect is Devereux Emmet. It was redesigned by Robert Trent Jones Sr. in 1957, and again by Rees Jones in 1989.

BETHESDA, Md. - This time next year, Aronimink Golf Club will have gussied itself up for its 2-year audition. Tiger Woods will move his AT & T National tournament from Congressional Country Club outside of Washington to Aronimink for the next 2 years while Congressional prepares to host the 2011 U.S. Open. Congressional, site of the first three AT&T Nationals, will host the AT & T again in 2012, '13 and '14, and, said Woods, "in perpetuity" in the D.C. area, if he has his way (though its return to Congressional barely passed a membership vote)

Hale Irwin birdied the 18th hole yesterday to win the weather-plagued Senior PGA Championship in Louisville, Ky., by one stroke over Jay Haas. Irwin led after each round and finished at 8-under 276 to win the event for the fourth time. He won it 3 years in a row starting in 1996. Irwin, who will turn 59 on Thursday, was the oldest winner of the event since Pete Cooper won in 1976 at age 61. Haas, playing in his first senior event after turning 50 in December, missed a 10-foot birdie putt on 18 as co-leader Irwin watched from the fairway.

Geoffrey Surrette, a former club pro who joined the Philadelphia PGA Section a year ago as tournament director, has been named the local association's new executive director. "Geoff's comfortable dealing with everybody from CEOs to apprentice pros," said Jim Smith Jr., a member of the section's executive committee and director of golf at Talamore at Oak Terrace. Surrette, 35, a South Jersey native, had been acting as the point man in the section's office since the firing of Jack Lutz as executive director Sept.

Jim Furyk still looks the same, walks the same, talks the same. It's been 58 days since he won the U.S. Open, and he says he's still the same guy who learned the game growing up in Lancaster. "I must have heard it a dozen times just on Sunday night at Olympia Fields: 'Your life is really going to change now,' " Furyk said yesterday before a practice round for the PGA Championship. "It still has not felt like it's changed. I don't feel I'm any different a person. I don't feel like I'm any different a player.