Jerry Pate went almost 24 years between his last victory on the PGA Tour and his first on the Champions Tour, so what if almost 24 months elapsed between his first senior win and Sunday's triumph at the Turtle Bay Championship?

The oft-injured Pate, driven off the PGA Tour because of shoulder woes when he was only 28, kept his game tidy in extreme winds on Oahu that made the final round on Turtle Bay's Palmer course quite a challenge--from tee to green and once you got there.

"I was playing with Scott Simpson," Pate said Monday morning, "and he had about a 30-foot putt on the 16th hole and putted it right off the green into a hazard. The ball just kept going."

The final round began as a dogfight among the final pairing of Gil Morgan, Jim Thorpe and Bernhard Langer, but the trio had its problems. Pate, four strokes behind when the day began, birdied Nos. 8-10, then settled in with seven straight pars that pretty much settled the outcome, giving the 54-year-old his first win since the 2006 Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am at 5-under 211.

The week was an emotional one for Pate, who dedicated his victory to the memory of Justin Wilk, the 25-year-old son of his good friend Kevin Wilk, who died unexpectedly Jan. 8. "It was devastating for Kevin," Pate said. "He had gotten an e-mail from his son the day before he died, talking about much he was looking forward to this year, and then, boom, the next day they find him dead. I told Kevin I was going to Hawaii for two tournaments, and I was going to win one of them for Justin."

An Alabama physical therapist, Kevin Wilk guided Pate through many hours of rehabilitation following the golfer's shoulder surgeries in 2003 and 2006. "This game is so crazy," Pate said. "I won in Tampa two years ago then got hurt a month later and had to have another surgery. And then after being out of the game for six months, I kind of lost my putting. All last year I had a mechanical flaw--I was kind of dragging the putter grip back first and creating a bad angle with my left wrist. I tell you, I was missing putts from a foot. It's not like I was nervous and had the yips, I just mechanically couldn't release the putter."

Pate, 41st on the 2007 money list, finally figured out what was wrong with his putting stroke last fall, and he came into the new year confident that a career with so many detours might go smoothly for a while. Sunday's win makes him fully exempt and has broadened his optimism.

"I can challenge them," he said of tour standouts such as Jay Haas and Loren Roberts. "Those guys are great players. But history says that before I was injured, when my putting was solid, I could compete with anybody. This is exciting for me."

--Bill Fields

HAVEN, Wis. -- If the golf gods -- whomever they may be -- are in a good mood this weekend, they will smile on Tom Watson at the U.S. Senior Open. This is the third straight year he has been the 36-hole leader in the championship, and his T-5 and second-place finishes the last two years go with his runner-up finishes in 2002 (in a playoff with Don Pooley) and 2003. In seven U.S. Senior Open appearances, Watson's worst finish is T-25 in 2004, but he hasn't been able to hoist the Francis Ouimet trophy on a Sunday afternoon.

At age 57, this may be Watson's last, best chance to win one of the two senior titles (along with the Senior PGA Championship, which he claimed in 2001) that carry the most weight. His Friday 66, which put him at eight-under 136 for 36 holes, was a tidy bit of work, even though he didn't feel so jaunty around Whistling Straits. "Well, the body doesn't feel like the Tom Watson of old," he said. "It feels like my legs are in concrete somewhat. But I got the job done today."

Sore left hip or not, he'll be trying to get the job done for two more days, trying to claim the missing link in his senior career.

-- Bill Fields

HAVEN, Wis. -- There is a smorgasbord of putting methods on display at the U.S. Senior Open. I've seen long putters, belly putters and traditional-length putters, claw and saw and crosshanded grips, smooth strokes and shaky ones. Des Smyth finished 36 holes at 5-under using a long putter, while Ben Crenshaw got to the same number using the kind of old-fashioned blade that was in vogue in 1967 -- both in pursuit of Tom Watson (8-under), whose has stubbornly stayed traditional on the greens.

Now I haven't seen all 156 players in the field, so I can't be sure, but I believe there is one putting style that isn't in use: side saddle, a la the late Sam Snead, who used it pretty effectively in his latter years after the USGA banned his croquet putting. Perhaps the longer shafts and creative grips to stave off nerves have made it a moot point, but side saddle is a pretty natural way to way to roll a putt, when you think about it. When I had the privilege of playing with Snead when he was 84, he sure came through with it when he had to, when the $20 was on the line.

I recall a practice-green conversation earlier this year at a Champions Tour event with Snead's fellow Virginian, Curtis Strange, who has remained a tried-and-true traditionalist in competition (he's ranked 11th in putting average in 2007, so he's still capable on the greens). But he confessed to having always been intrigued with Snead's method and having had a putter custom-made to facilitate a side-saddle stroke. He said that he makes a lot of putts with it practicing at home. As if to prove it, he took his regular putter, did his best Snead imitation and casually canned a couple of eight-footers.

Don't expect Strange to go side saddle on the senior tour any time soon, but I wonder if anyone else will? Everything old in golf is new again at some point. I wouldn't bet against it.

-- Bill Fields

HAVEN, Wis. -- Argentine Eduardo Romero went a long way toward matching countryman Angel Cabrera's U.S. Open victory by shooting a first-round 66 Thursday morning in the U.S. Senior Open at Whistling Straits. Romero hit 11 fairways, 15 greens and had 28 putts to set the early pace. His naturally powerful swing was in peak form.

"The late Dave Marr had the best line," recalled Curtis Strange. "He said, 'There is not a swing thought in the whole continent of South America.' That's the way they play. Even Vicente [Fernandez, who shot a first-round 69]. They get over it, they've got great grips. There is not a swing thought. It's just beautiful to watch."
            

Lest anyone think the natural, flowing, uncomplicated actions come without a sweat, however, think again. Romero said he hit 500 practice balls Wednesday afternoon trying to groove the swing that has been his for a long time. "We start to play golf when we were 5 years old, you know?" said Romero. "I never change the swing. We start with the same swing, and it's a natural swing."            

-- Bill Fields

HAVEN, Wis. -- Loren Roberts has finished T-2 and T-8 in the last two U.S. Senior Opens. If the 52-year-old does well at Whistling Straits this week, some of the credit will go to Manuel de la Torre. Roberts visited the octogenarian instructor Monday afternoon at Milwaukee CC. "Absolutely one of golf's wisemen," said Roberts. "What's so great about Manuel is that he talks more about the mental side of the game and the positive side a lot more than the mechanical side."

Among de la Torre's "pearls of wisdoms," as Roberts calls them, is a belief that the swing should be free and full and uncomplicated. "It's more or less about relaxing through the golf swing," Roberts said. "You just need to get up there and make your full swing through the ball -- just get up there and make [your] swing and release the club. I have a tendency to kind of hold on to the handle a little too much. He just got me to relax and free it up."

This is the second time Roberts has consulted the de la Torre, having seen him prior to his T-2 finish in the 1997 Greater Milwaukee Open. Two weeks after that, Roberts won the CVS Charity Classic, one of his eight PGA Tour victories.

"He has a great golf mind," Roberts said of de la Torre. "He tries to keep it very unconfusing. That's what I appreciate. By the time you get to [my] age, you've got a pretty good idea of what you can do and what you can't. You just need to go ahead and trust what you've got and play. That's what he's about, swinging the clubhead. Swing at the target. It's not about positions."

-- Bill Fields

HAVEN, Wis. -- Hard to believe the seniors could be pining for the difficult Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, but after a couple of practice rounds for this week's U.S. Senior Open at Whistling Straits, it seems they think this Pete Dye creation is even tougher than his design on the South Carolina shore that beat them up at the Senior PGA Championship in May. Several players, including Curtis Strange, offered their perspective in a Gary D'Amato story in Wednesday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

"At Kiawah, if you do miss a shot you are penalized but it's fair," Strange said. "Here, if you miss a shot, you're penalized and you might make a 12. There's a difference between making a double bogey and a 12."

Denis Watson, who won at the Ocean course, says the difference is Whistling Straits' more narrow fairways. "Every single hole demands a great shot off the tee," he said. "You cannot scrape it around here."

Allen Doyle is trying to make history by winning his third consecutive U.S. Senior Open crown, but he knows it isn't going to be easy. "I would say if the wind blew it would play two or three shots a day higher probably than at Kiawah, and the scores weren't very good at Kiawah," Doyle said this morning. "You miss [shots] in certain spots around here -- to the left of No. 4, to the left of No. 17 -- they're going to have to send out search parties for guys, maybe."

The highest winning 72-hole score in U.S. Senior Open history is nine-over-par 289 at Oakland Hills in 1981. Whether this week approaches anything like that will depend on the strength of the wind. "I think Thursday and Sunday will be the breeziest days of the week," USGA meterologist Jake Swick told me this morning. "I could see gusts up to 25 miles per hour on those days."  Winds of 10 to 20 mph are expected throughout the tournament, perhaps slightly less on Friday.

-- Bill Fields