PARKER, Colo.--There has been a lot of chatter recently about the possibility of Billy Harmon becoming Tiger Woods' teacher, but at the Senior PGA Championship, Harmon's expertise paid off for Champions Tour stalwart Loren Roberts.

Roberts was paired in the first round with Jay Haas, a longtime pupil of Harmon's. After struggling to a 77 at Colorado GC, Roberts, who had never worked with Harmon, asked the instructor to meet him on the practice range.

"I told him, 'I know I'm not Tiger, but how about taking a look?'" Roberts joked the next day.

Roberts' game turned around after the lesson. He closed with 70-70-71 to finish T-15 at even-par 288.

"What I like about Billy is, he's old school," Roberts said. "There's a lot of ways to swing and no reason to drastically change what you've got. We just talked about getting my thumbs more under the club at the top. I've had the club real shut at the top and he was just trying to get it more open. I appreciate him taking a look; he sure helped me out. I was going nowhere after the first round."

-- Bill Fields

DUBLIN, Ohio -- The Memorial Tournament presented by Morgan Stanley filled out its field to 120 players Saturday by awarding its final three open exemptions to three players with Ohio ties, including Ohio State University graduate Chris Smith, who continues his comeback less than a year after he lost his wife, Beth, in an auto accident.

Smith, 41, of Peru, Ind., will be making his fifth start this year on the PGA Tour. He made the last of his three Memorial appearances in 2003. He made the cut in each of his three starts but finished no better than T-56. Smith made his first cut of the season two weeks ago at the HP Byron Nelson Championship, finishing T-43.

Winner of the 2002 Buick Classic, Smith was a teammate with Gary Nicklaus on the OSU golf team. Jack Nicklaus hosts the Memorial, celebrating its 35th year.

Also granted exemptions were Ohio natives Steve Flesch and Chris Wilson. Flesch, from Cincinnati, has won four titles. The left-hander has made 12 previous starts at Muirfield Village Golf Club with a T-5 in 2000 his best showing. Wilson, a rookie this year on the tour, is a Columbus native who will be playing in his second Memorial. He missed the cut last year.

Tiger Woods is the defending champion. The only four-time winner of the Memorial will be making his first start since withdrawing from the final round of The Players with a neck injury.

-- Dave Shedloski

PARKER, Colo -- Tom Watson gave David Frost a lesson Friday at the Senior PGA Championship and didn't even know it.

Frost, dismayed after a second-round 77 at Colorado GC, watched the Hall of Famer hit balls for 20 minutes. The South African has always fought a weak grip, and he noticed that Watson "has his left hand nice and strong on the golf club."

Playing with a stronger grip Saturday, Frost shot a course-record 65 to vault into contention at two-under, five strokes behind leader Fred Couples as the final pairing made the turn.

Frost's 12-shot turnaround was the same differential as he experienced in the 2005 British Open at St. Andrews, when he opened with a 77 then fired a second-round 65 en route to a T-15.

Always a fine putter, Frost needed only 24 putts Saturday while one-putting 11 greens. Six of his seven birdies were from 10 feet or closer.

"These things happen in majors where somebody comes out of the pack early in the day and gets in contention," Frost said. "More than likely guys don't shoot two low rounds on the weekend after making a big comeback on Saturday, but who knows? You just go out there and you have nothing to lose, just play my game. Maybe I can have the same attitude tomorow as what I had today."

-- Bill Fields

PARKER, Colo. -- Chien Soon Lu is making the most of his first season on the Champions Tour.

Lu, who turned 50 on Dec. 28 last year after earning the final conditionally-exempt spot for 2010 on the eighth playoff hole at Champions Tour Q school, has four top-10s in five tournaments coming into this week's Senior PGA Championship. This is shaping up like another good week for the Taiwanese golfer, who shot his second straight 70 Friday at Colorado GC and was T-5, only two strokes behind Tom Kite and Bernhard Langer as the second round unfolded.

Lu brings a formidable Asian resume into this senior career, with 32 victories on the Asian and Taiwan tours, but he was sidelined from 2001-2008 because of back problems.

He is making up for lost time when it comes to preparation. No one competing this week is probably more familiar with Colorado GC--outside of co-designer Ben Crenshaw --- than Lu. Not long after the club had opened for the season in April, Lu came and played 90 holes in three days.

That practice time obviously helped Lu, who had never played golf at a high altitude before.

-- Bill Fields

FORT WORTH, Texas - Perhaps what Phil Mickelson needs is Tiger Woods in the field. With Woods off practicing somewhere for next week's Memorial, Mickelson explored the far reaches of Colonial Country Club with a wide variety of errant shots on his way to missing the cut at the Crowne Plaza Invitational, a tournament he has won twice.

What kind of odds do you think you could have gotten on Wednesday if you had said that Mickelson would not qualify to play on the weekend at the Crowne Plaza Invitational while John Daly, the guy without a tour card whose last top-10 was in 2005, and 50- year-old Ryder Cup captain Corey Pavin would not only be playing the final 36 holes but be in the hunt?

"I played terribly, I don't know what more to say than that," Mickelson said after rounds of 71 and 73 left him at four over par and well above the cut line. "It's a good barometer for me to know that going into my run-up for the U.S. Open I have a lot of work to do." Pavin, meanwhile was nine under par after 36 holes and Daly was five under. Go figure.

The missed cut puts a slight damper on the Pink Out planned for Saturday at Colonial in which players and fans are encouraged to wear pink in support of the fight against breast cancer, a disease both Phil's wife Amy and mother Mary are fighting. "I won't be there," Mickelson said with apologies. "I'll be home with Amy and the kids but we will all be wearing pink."

Tiger has teed it up at three PGA Tour events so far this year, all of which also had Lefty in the field. Mickelson won the Masters, where Woods was fourth, finished second at the Quail Hollow Championship as Woods missed the cut, and was T-17 at the Players Championship. Woods quit on the seventh hole Sunday at TPC Sawgrass.

While it is likely not a conscious thought on the part of Mickelson, you get the feeling that if he should take over the No. 1 spot in the Official World Ranking, which he would have done with a victory here this week, Phil would rather do it with Woods among the competitors. No sense claiming the prize only to have people say, "Well, Tiger wasn't there."

Woods has held the No. 1 ranking a total of 601 weeks and the last 259 consecutively. Mickelson, who has spent the last 13 years compiling awesome career numbers in the shadow of Woods, has never been the best player in the world, according to the rankings.

He certainly didn't play like No. 1 at Colonial. After an opening round 71 - eight strokes off the lead - in which he hit only five fairways, missing some with a 2-iron off the tee, he failed to mount a charge in Friday's second round. In fact, he was even more erratic.

Playing the back nine first, Mickelson made a routine par on No. 10 then missed the fairway left on the par-5 11th hole and compounded that mistake by hooking his second shot into the hazard right off the fairway. And that bogey was made worse by a four-foot miss on No. 12 as he dropped two strokes in the first three holes.

Any lingering hope ended on No. 5 - his 14th hole - when he drove into the left trees, punched out and made a bogey that sealed his fate. After Mickelson drove on No. 8 a voice called out, "No 1 in the world." Not yet. Perhaps that will come at a tournament when Woods is also in the field, perhaps next week at the Memorial or two weeks after that at the U.S. Open on Father's Day. Somehow, that would seem appropriate.

-- Ron Sirak

PARKER, Colo. -- Thursday started normally for Doug Perry, the 55-year-old head professional at City Park Nine GC, a municipal course in Fort Collins, Colo. He was up at 4:45 a.m. and arrived at the course at 5:30. He gave a group lesson to four women beginners that concluded at 10:30. When that was over, he was inside getting a check to pay a liquor salesman making a delivery when the phone rang.

"I actually thought somebody was pulling a prank on me," Perry said of his reaction when the caller, Susan Martin of the PGA of America, told him Hal Sutton had withdrawn because of a sore hip and there was a spot for Perry in the Senior PGA Championship at Colorado GC.

Sutton was the ninth golfer to pull out of the field, and officials were scrambling to find alternates. Perry's T-68 in the 2009 Senior PGA National Championship -- and his Colorado address -- got him the late invitation.

There was only one hitch. Perry just had about three hours before the 2:15 p.m. starting time, with former major champions Nick Price and Tom Lehman, no less.

Perry made a quick call to his best friend Dale Smigelsky, the director of golf at Collindale GC, another municipal facility in Fort Collins, to see if Smigelsky could arrange for someone to staff City Park so he could compete and if he could caddie for him. With those details set, the duo made the 90-mile drive, arriving at Colorado GC at 1:55 p.m. after a detour to Lenny's Golf Shop in Aurora, Colo., so Perry could buy two wedges with conforming grooves.

"I was nervous as hell," Perry said of his emotions when he arrived at Colorado GC at 1:55 p.m. "I hit three drives and four 7-irons then ran over and hit two putts and we had to go."

Somehow, Perry parred the first two holes before carding a triple bogey on No. 3. He had another triple on No. 13 and a double bogey on No. 12, but made 12 pars en route to an 83 alongside Lehman and Price, who shot 68 and 70 respectively.

"He's a really nice man and I felt so bad for him that he got here with only minutes to spare," said Price. "He was a little harried on the first hole, to say the least but he made a par. Tom and I were trying to make him feel as comfortable as possible and give him as much encouragement as we could. I just said to him on the third hole to relax and enjoy it."

Perry, whose only foray into big-time golf was an appearance at the 2004 U.S. Senior Open, soaked up the day. "I told one of the guys that I like the game we play at our club," he said. "Yesterday we had Ladies' Day, and they throw out the four worst holes. If was doing that, I wouldn't have been so bad. That's my kind of game. But just playing with these two guys was fantastic."

-- Bill Fields

PARKER, Colo. -- Mountain golf has its quirks. Robin Freeman sure could attest to that after the first round of the Senior PGA Championship at Colorado GC, where he shot a six-under 66 to share the lead with two-time Masters champion Bernhard Langer.

The par-3 sixth hole measured 261 yards Thursday. Three-wood? Hybrid? Three-iron?

Freeman chose a 5-iron in the thin air and with a firm green, his ball finishing 20 feet behind the hole from where he made the birdie putt.

"That was a very interesting calculation going on on that hole," said Freeman, a veteran of seven events at the former PGA Tour event at Castle Pines GC. "So I played at altitude before, I know the calculations pretty well, but still, when you're standing on that tee ... but you're only trying to land it 225, 230 knowing it's going to release. But it's still pretty hard to stand back there and say, 'Yeah, I've got 261 yards and I'm going to hit a soft 5-iron. That just doesn't compute. But you still have to commit to the swing and just make it. And it worked out."

-- Bill Fields