By Bill Fields

TOWN AND COUNTRY, Mo. -- The Senior PGA Championship will always stand out in 50-and-over golf because it is by far the oldest of the senior majors, having begun in 1937 at Augusta National GC.

This year, though, for the 74th renewal, a portion of the older set has chosen to compete about 700 miles from Bellerive CC, in the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial in Fort Worth, where they are past champions. Tom Lehman -- who has won the Champions Tour's Charles Schwab Cup the past two seasons -- David Frost, Corey Pavin and Keith Clearwater are teeing it up at Colonial CC in the PGA Tour stop this week.

Hale Irwin is a sentimental choice to win this week. (Photo: Getty Images)

Combined with the absences of Fred Couples, who withdrew Monday citing his back, and John Cook, who will speak at mentor Ken Venturi's Thursday service, four of the top 15 players on the 2013 Champions Tour money list won't be playing outside St. Louis. Another missing player is Nick Price, victorious in the 1992 PGA Championship at Bellerive, who is still on the mend from arm surgery.

Those golfers who are at Bellerive will encounter a course with which they are familiar -- although one that was adjusted by architect Rees Jones following the 2004 U.S. Senior Open won by Peter Jacobsen. It is a formidable, par-71 design whose first turn in the national spotlight was when it hosted the 1965 U.S. Open won by Gary Player.

An 11-year-old St. Louis boy, Jay Haas, was a spectator that summer out with his uncle, Bob Goalby, a prominent tour pro. As Haas recalled Wednesday in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "I kind of remember being here and being near the 18th green when Jack Nicklaus walked off. There was a lot of people around him, and I remember my Uncle Bob saying, 'Get that guy's autograph. He's going to be a star.' "

Haas got Nicklaus' signature and, if not Nicklausian, eventually fashioned an endurable and solid decades-long career of his own, which is still going well at age 59. If that would seem too old to win the Senior PGA, consider that in 2011 Tom Watson, 61, became the oldest winner of the championship since the advent of the Champions Tour. Hale Irwin was just shy of his 59th birthday when he won in 2004, and John Jacobs was also 58 when he won in 2003.

Irwin, who will turn 68 on June 3 and lived in St. Louis for many years, would be the ultimate, sentimental, golden oldie longshot this week. But consider that he is coming off two years in which he finished fourth and third in the event of which he is a four-time champion. And Irwin was second to Jacobsen in the 2004 U.S. Senior Open, just ahead of Haas and Tom Kite.

A more logical pick would be Bernhard Langer, the only multiple winner on the Champions Tour this season with two titles, and 18 in his career. Kenny Perry, a past Colonial winner who chose to play with his age group this week, will be another golfer to watch. Perry, 52, only has one career senior win, but has great memories from the final round of the 2012 Senior PGA, when he closed with a record 10-under 62 at the GC at Harbor Shores in Benton Harbor, Mich.

Regardless of who prevails at the end of 72 holes, they will join a who's who of former champions, including Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead, Julius Boros, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino and Raymond Floyd. Even without getting presented the huge Alfred S. Bourne Trophy, all of 36 pounds, a winner knows he has achieved a weighty accomplishment.

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By John Strege

Former PGA Tour and Champions Tour player Al Geiberger has a tax issue, but he said that's not the reason he auctioned off much of his memorabilia, including the clubs with which he recorded the first 59 in PGA Tour history.

Geiberger, 75, said that his Champions Tour pension, an annuity on which he began collecting at age 65, expired at age 75 and that his PGA Tour pension pays "a whopping $128 a month."

Bidding, conducted through Green Jacket Auctions, closed on the Geiberger Collection on Saturday night, earning him nearly $130,000, including $54,754 for the Wanamaker Trophy he received for winning the PGA Championship in 1966 and $10,832 for the clubs from his round of 59.

Geiberger's name, meanwhile, had turned up on a California Franchise Tax Board list of the top 500 delinquent taxpayers, noting that he owed $219,060.

"No, not that's not the reason," he said about selling his collection. "We've been handling that with Bernie Gartland [of the Gartland Group, tax attorneys]. We settled with the IRS, but the state is ridiculous to work with. Bernie's been working with them."

He sold the memorabilia to generate cash to augment his retirement income. "I didn't make any retirement on the regular tour," he said. "The senior tour is where I built up some, but the annuity ends in 10 years."

The memorabilia, at any rate, had been locked away in a storage facility near his home in Palm Desert, Calif. "We've actually been in touch with Al for the last couple of years," Ryan Carey, president of Green Jacket Auctions, said. "We'd known he has been interested in selling his collection. It's been sitting in a storage locker for several years. He knew he wasn't really appreciating it."

The original World Golf Hall of Fame, then in Pinehurst, N.C., wanted the clubs he used in shooting 59 in the second round of the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic in 1977. "But I was still playing with them," he said. Instead, he sent the ball, a Hogan model that he used for all 18 holes, which has turned up missing, he said.

His auction take, incidentally ($129,983, to be exact), was more than he earned in all but two seasons in his PGA Tour career. In 1975 and '76, he earned $176,000 and $195,000 respectively.

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By Bill Fields

BOCA RATON, Fla. -- Rocco Mediate believes the Champions Tour ought to use a simple marketing slogan: These Guys Are Still Good.

Mediate, making his senior debut this week at the Allianz Championship, one of the game's best talkers, is walking the walk. He shot an 11-under 61 at the Old Course at Broken Sound Saturday to take a three-shot lead over Tom Pernice Jr. into the final round. A 10-foot eagle putt on the par-5 18th hole provided the finishing touch, putting Mediate at 16-under 128 after 36 holes.

Related: Rocco Mediate at 50

Pernice backed up his opening 66 with a 65 to keep himself within striking distance as Mediate, who turned 50 last December, attempts to become the 16th golfer to win his first event on the Champions Tour. Interestingly, Pernice was the most recent player to pull off the feat, at the 2009 SAS Championship.

Bernard Langer is in third place at 11 under, followed by David Frost at nine under.

Many eyes will be on Mediate Sunday. For his part, he is looking forward to being in contention again and trying to prove himself under pressure.

"You get to see what you have," said Mediate.

He certainly had plenty on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

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By Alex Myers

FAR HILLS, N.J. -- From the back of the room came a familiar question for Lee Elder. The man best known as the first African American to play in the Masters has been answering it in some form or another for more than 37 years: What are your recollections from your first trip to Augusta?

"I was scared to death," Elder said without hesitation.

Nearly four decades after that historic event, Elder's chilling words are just as meaningful -- if not even more important. To a younger generation of golfers, some of whom were in the crowd Wednesday at the USGA's headquarters, it was a reminder that it wasn't too long ago that a black man could feel fear on a golf course that went well beyond a daunting tee shot.

Photo courtesy of the USGA

Elder addressed the 1975 Masters along with plenty of other aspects of his storied career during a talk and Q&A with a crowd ranging from children in the First Tee program to older fans familiar with his record. The 78-year-old's best days on the golf course are well behind him, but that doesn't mean he's finished doing what he can for the sport he loves.

"I think you should give back until you're not longer here. I would never walk away from the game," said Elder, who splits his time between homes in Fort Lauderdale and San Diego. "Golf has been so good to me. Golf gave me my livelihood. Golf made it possible for me to enjoy a lot of things I probably wouldn't have enjoyed had I not been involved in the game of golf. And I think once you do that, you should keep on trying to improve the game of golf and how you do that is by helping the younger people that are going to come after you."

Related: A collection of Masters memories

His message was well received by those listening, including the younger portion with whom he took photographs and signed autographs for afterward.

"It was encouraging to me to hear about his life in golf because I want to be a golfer," Sebastian Gonell, 8, of Jersey City, said.

Speaking in the shadow of the USGA museum, Elder represents a living piece of history. It's for this reason that he was sought out by the museum's director, Robert Williams, to help improve the building's exhibit on minorities in golf.

"He is a real pioneer, along with (Charlie) Sifford and others, and that pioneering spirit, that ability to stand up in the face of all adversity and succeed is a uniquely American story," Williams said. "It's not just inspirational to the minority community, I think it's inspirational to us all."

The exhibit includes material on Jackie Robinson, Althea Gibson and Joe Louis, all pioneers in their own sports who used their influence to help open golf's doors as well. Elder had close relationships with all three and noted that "It's really important to me that I carry on that legacy that they started."

Elder's groundbreaking appearance at Augusta -- for which he says he received up to 100 death threats -- rightfully gets a lot of attention, but his career also included four PGA Tour titles and eight wins on the Champions Tour. After dominating the United Golf Association (a professional tour for African Americans), he earned his PGA Tour card through qualifying school in 1967. His best year came in 1978 when he won twice, including a playoff victory over Lee Trevino at the Greater Milwaukee Open. That led to what he described as the only "tear-jerking" moment of his career: Representing the U.S. at the 1979 Ryder Cup.

"To be sitting in that chair and to have them announce your name. And you stand up as a member of the team, and to have the U.S. flag behind you . . . that was so significant for me," said Elder, who also became the first African American to play in the biennial event that week at the Greenbrier. "I'd never experienced anything like that."

Related: How the U.S. lost the Ryder Cup at Medinah

Speaking to reporters before his talk, Elder also recalled his most frightening experience on a golf course. That came at a 1970 tournament in Memphis when someone in the crowd on Saturday picked up his ball out of the left side of the fairway and threw it onto a road. No one in the gallery spoke on Elder's behalf, but playing partner Terry Dill vouched for Elder and he received a free drop.

"They really didn't want me to win the tournament," Elder said. "After that, it led to a lot of hollering and name calling, so I had to play in the rest of the way with a police escort."

The on-course atmosphere is a lot different now for Elder, who still plays from time to time in the "Grand Champions" division of the Champions Tour. He is also currently working on a book and is in the process of trying to set up clinics for young, minority golfers in his name -- something he wishes Tiger Woods did more of.

"I'm surprised because I felt he'd be a little more involved. I thought he'd be more outspoken," Elder said of Woods, who he is still friends with, but with whom he acknowledges his relationship is not as close as it once was.

Elder still keeps close tabs on the world of golf. He attended last week's Ryder Cup at Medinah (If he were captain, he wouldn't have sent Tiger Woods off last on Sunday), and he was thrilled when Augusta National was in the news earlier this year for breaking down another barrier and finally opening its doors for women by admitting its first two female members: former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Darla Moore.

"I thought that was fantastic and I thought they selected great people," Elder said.

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While there have been exceptions -- Fred Funk's record winning score of 20-under 268 at Crooked Stick GC in 2009 pops to mind -- the U.S. Senior Open is perennially where golf's 50-and-over crowd faces one of its biggest challenges of the year. "Hit the ball where you're aiming it, make a couple of putts and get out of dodge without making too many mistakes," said U.S. Senior Open defending champion Olin Browne, who triumphed at Inverness Club last summer.

Browne's recipe for success holds for the 33rd U.S. Open Senior Open being contested this week at Indianwood G&CC in Lake Orion, Mich., not too far north of Detroit. The Wilfrid Reid/William Connellan design, which opened in 1925, will measure 6,862 yards and play to par 70. There are only two par 5s, lots of elevated greens, fairways rewarding precise tee shots and plenty of rough awaiting those who miss.

"The fairways are narrow and there is a lot of rough out there," was how Michael Allen, a two-time winner on the Champions Tour this season, appraised Indianwood. "I've never seen so much rough for any event I played on the Champions Tour. I think it's going to be a real challenge."

Related: The most grueling U.S. Opens

Tom Watson, who at 62 is still chasing his first U.S. Senior Open title, didn't mince words about what will be essential this week. "If you don't drive the ball well, you have no chance," Watson said. "Absolutely no chance. None. Zero. The rough is so deep, so penal, and the fairways are pretty narrow."

Indianwood's USGA history goes back a couple of decades, when it was the site of the U.S. Women's Open in 1989 and 1994. Those championships were captured by two of the best players of their generation, Betsy King and Patty Sheehan, which makes it seem likely that the winner this week could be a familiar force on the Champions Tour as opposed to upstart winners such as Roger Chapman, who won the Senior PGA Championship earlier this year, and Joe Daley, who won the Senior Players.

In between those two events, senior stalwart Tom Lehman prevailed at the Regions Tradition, and Lehman, who threatened so often to win the U.S. Open, certainly should be a player to watch at Indianwood because of his complete game. "It's a typical U.S. Open set-up here, in [that] you can't really get away with too many loose shots," Lehman said. "You're going to get punished for some wayward play out there. So you get here and you get on the course and realize, 'Ah, ha, yes this is a U.S. Open.' And there's no gimmicks. You gotta play solid golf, put it in the fairway, put it on the green and putt well."

Most of Indianwood's greens are on the small side, the mammoth and heaving 18th being -- literally -- a huge exception.

"I'm not sure how you would describe that green," said Lehman, who then made an attempt at explaining the severely sloped putting surface, which USGA official Jeff Hall said is 51 yards deep. "There's something [buried] in there," Lehman said. "Volkswagen Bugs, maybe a few General Motors cars and Buicks. Something is in there. I don't know."

By the time competitors get to the finishing hole, they will have already tested their patience in familiar ways.

"We do want the Senior Open to be very reminiscent of the U.S. Opens of the past these gentlemen have participated in," Hall said. "That said, it's not intended to be the U.S. Open. It can't be. It's a different group of players. But we do want it to be the toughest test in golf that these players encounter each year."

Having been through the real thing last month at Olympic Club, Allen and Browne are recently battled tested, not that their peers don't remember the feeling.

"In these kinds of tournaments, you know you're going to be frustrated a few times," Allen said. "You're going to hit some shots that don't turn out [that] well. You've got to have a lot of patience out here. You've got to go through it and kind of stay in the ball game."

-- Bill Fields
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(Photo by Hunter Martin/Getty Images)

(Getty Images photo)

BENTON HARBOR, Mich. - For three nights running, Roger Chapman has eaten dinner with a book and his thoughts at the Grande Mere Inn in nearby Stevensville.

He was planning a fourth visit Saturday night. And why not?

Chapman's third round of the 73rd Senior PGA Championship was his best yet at the GC of Harbor Shores, a brilliant, seven-under 64 that put him at 14-under and five strokes ahead of John Cook after 54 holes.

The Englishman's 54-hole total of 199 matched the championship record held by Sam Snead, and his ball-striking today would have been something the Slammer would have admired. Chapman, utilizing what he described as the best iron play of his life, peppered the flagsticks throughout the day and holed a pair of 25-foot birdie putts to boot.

"It was pretty special," Chapman said. "Coming here I had no real expectations, but I knew I was playing OK and everything the first three rounds has gone really well for me."

He has hit 48 of 54 greens through 54 holes, the type of golf that makes one wonder why he only won once during his long European Tour career.

That victory, in the 2000 Brazil Rio de Janeiro 500 Years Open over Padraig Harrington in a playoff, came on his 472nd start. He never won again, and at 53 is still looking for his first win on the European senior circuit after playing a truncated schedule on the Champions Tour last year.

At Harbor Shores, Chapman has looked like he is on cruise control. "He's swinging the club beautifully, and his distance control has been spot on," said Cook, who was grouped with Chapman Saturday. "And he's used those ridges [on the greens] perfectly. It really was a great round to watch. If he keeps swinging the way he is right now, it's going to be tough. Somebody's going to have to shoot something very low."

Harbor Shores has a lot of trouble, but so far Chapman has avoided most of it with rounds of 68, 67 and today's course-record tying 64. His challenge will be to stay clear of it again tomorrow, even with the comfortable cushion starting the day. After Cook at nine under, Steve Pate and Hale Irwin are tied for third place, seven shots behind the leader, with Joel Edwards another stroke back in fifth place.

"There's a lot of trouble out there," Cook said. "If you don't quite have it, it can make you look silly."

Through 54 holes, Chapman has simply looked superb.

-- Bill Fields

(Photo by Getty Images)

BENTON HARBOR, Mich. -- When Hale Irwin got to the Senior PGA Championship this week and heard so much carping from his peers about the severe greens at Harbor Shores, it reminded him of a championship long ago.

"Well, it reminds me a lot of Winged Foot in '74," Irwin said. "There were a lot of disgruntled players in '74, and 70 percent of them were out of the tournament before the tournament even started."

The dogged Irwin, of course, survived Winged Foot's rigors in 1974 to win the first of his three U.S. Opens. Through two rounds of the Senior PGA, Irwin is in the thick of contention at age 66. He matched his age Friday in a remarkable ball-striking display that moved him to five-under 137, in third place, two shots behind Roger Chapman and John Cook.

"He played behind me and I knew he got off to a good start and it looked like he was making birdies on every hole," Cook said. "And I go, 'Oh my God, look at this, we're battling around there just trying to make pars and here's this 66-year-old just whipping our butts.'"

Irwin three-putted the par-5 ninth hole (his 18th) for his lone bogey of the day. He missed six birdie putts inside 15 feet on a day that could have truly been something to talk about. "I really didn't putt very well," Irwin said, "I just played very, very well."

Irwin's shotmaking was personified by a beautiful, cut 5-iron on his 11th hole, a 176-yard par 3, where his ball chased back to within five feet of a rear hole location. He has only had one top-10 finish this season on the Champions Tour (in the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf with partner Ian Baker-Finch) but is inspired by the tougher challenges at the senior majors.

"These are exacting golf courses and they require exacting shots," Irwin said. "And that's the way it should be and why I think there are some of us that look so forward to these kind of events. And if I can do well in them, exel in them and have a chance the last day, then - I hate the term - that's what it's all about. That's why we continue doing what we do and continue trying to push that bar beyond where some people might stop. I just don't believe in that. It's just not in me to do that."

At Valhalla GC last year, Irwin made a spirited run at his fifth Senior PGA Championship, sharing the 54-hole lead before closing with a 73 to finish two shots out of the Tom Watson-David Eger playoff won by Watson. Now, with two rounds to play at Harbor Shores, Irwin is right back in the mix.

"He's such an inspiration," said Cook. "Hale just keeps getting it done."

-- Bill Fields

BENTON HARBOR, Mich. -- Same guy, same course, different day.

Michael Allen shot a 77 Thursday in the first round of the 73rd Senior PGA Championship. He was 13 strokes better than that Friday, carding a course-record, seven-under 64 to vault into contention on a much calmer day at Harbor Shores.

Allen, 102nd after his six-over opening round, was T-5 at one-under 141 when he got to the clubhouse, three strokes behind leader Roger Chapman, who was early in his second round.

It was the lowest round shot in the Senior PGA since Allen Doyle closed with a 64 to win the event in 1999 at PGA National GC. His turnaround equaled the 13-shot swings by Brad Bryant (80-67) and Bill Loeffler (82-69) from the second to third rounds during the 2010 Senior PGA at Colorado GC.

Allen -- the hottest player on the Champions Tour this season with two victories and four other top-four finishes -- made seven birdies (only one on a par 5), saved par after hitting his approach long on No. 7 and didn't have a bogey.