The Senior PGA Championship

Tournament Info for: 2004 Senior PGA Championship
Date:	May 24 - 30, 2004
Site:	Valhalla Golf Club
Champion:	Hale Irwin
Purse:	$2,000,000.00
Field:	156
Cut at:	149
Par:	36 - 35 - 71 (6,990 yards) 36 - 36 - 72 (6,990 yards)
Players Advanced:	149

Hale Irwin paused to take a deep breath and then stroked a memorable 40-foot lag putt up a steep crest in the 18th green, May 31, to win the 65th Senior PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky. The ball rolled to within a foot of the hole from where Irwin made his birdie putt and closed another chapter for one of golf’s most amazing performers. Irwin, who turned 59 three days later, recorded his fourth victory in the oldest and most prestigious event in senior golf and first since 1998. It also was Irwin’s seventh career senior major. Five days, five weather delays, nearby tornadoes and more than seven inches of rain saturating a difficult golf course. This Senior PGA Championship had about everything one could imagine testing both players and grounds crews. The Monday finish was the third in Senior PGA Championship history, following Doug Tewell’s victory in an abbreviated 54-hole Championship in 2000, and the late Fred Haas Jr., who won in 1966 after the first round was postponed. Irwin overcame three back nine bogeys by sinking a clutch 12-foot birdie on the 13th hole, making a six-foot par putt at the par-4 15th and finishing with his birdie at the 18th. He posted an even-par 71 for a 72-hole total of 8-under-par 276. Champions Tour rookie Jay Haas, who pushed a six-foot birdie putt on the 18th to lose by one stroke, closed with a 70. Craig Stadler, who pitched in for eagle on the 18th for a 69, was third at 279 and England’s Mark James, Tom Watson and Canada’s Dave Barr shared fourth at 282.

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