Tuesday, April 21, 1998 | 7:01 a.m.
All day long, Hale Irwin's body language and mannerisms reflected his game.
For virtually 17 holes, he was angry and disappointed in his play. He banged clubs, banged the steering wheel on his golf cart, banged himself on the forehead in the classic "I-can't-believe-I-did-that" show of mock indignation.
There was a golf tournament there to be won and he was struggling to put it away.
But at the 18th hole Sunday, with the Las Vegas Senior Classic championship on the line, all was forgiven. Needing to drain a 15-foot birdie putt to win, Irwin struck it so cleanly he was gesturing in exultation as the ball made its way to the cup.
When it fell, the pressure of a tiring afternoon was relieved.
"I saved the best putt for last," he said. "There were a lot of ugly ones in between."
Fighting himself and a disturbingly brisk wind at the new TPC at The Canyons course, Irwin's final-round of one-over-par 72 enabled him to post his fourth Senior Tour victory in seven outings this year. Isao Aoki, who hung tough and was tied with Irwin as they played the final hole, finished second by a shot.
"I avoided a playoff I very much didn't want to get into," Irwin said. "I didn't want to go back out there. Aoki would have had the momentum because I was going backward.
"It was awful. God, I'm glad it's over."
He truly was relieved, if for no other reason than he knew the tournament was his for the taking and he was expected to do it. Despite being two up as he began the final round, he never could increase that lead and actually surrendered a portion of it on two occasions, first with consecutive bogeys at the turn and later when he missed a pair of relatively short putts on the homestretch.
"I was leaking oil and throwing off parts all over the place," Irwin said. "It wasn't pretty."
It was obvious he wasn't happy with his play, right from the outset.
"I hit a wall this morning," he said. "I was really lethargic and I didn't even practice well. I never got into the round. I never got into the rhythm of things."
By the fourth hole his actions and reactions were telltale. There, he smacked his club into the ground after a misplayed second shot, and for the next three hours or so his every movement and facial expression had a negative look to it.
Two days after shooting 65, he was bent out of shape trying to match the par of 71.
It turns out 72 was good enough.
Here's why: The wind was so vicious, especially as the day wore on, that only six players in the field of 56 shot 69 or better and each of the six teed off more than an hour before Irwin. In other words, no one on the leader board entering the day had a final round in the 60s as the wind was predictably unpredictable, whipping all day and gusting at times to 50 miles per hour.
It was grueling.
"Here was an already unfamiliar course to us and the wind made it play like a whole new course again," Irwin said. "You had to keep the ball down, but one of the problems with that is that there's not a whole lot of room to run it up."
As a result, scores escalated.
"I tried," Aoki said of finishing second with his even-par 71. "A par score seems very good. The wind was swirling and I couldn't read or judge a thing.
"In Japan it gets windy at times, but I haven't played in wind that swirls like this."
More often than not the wind was out of the west or southwest, but it changed on a whim. The fact that Irwin got to the first tee and found the wind direction had changed since he left the practice range only added to his discomfort entering the round.
"What kind of meteorologic phenomenon was that?" he said incredulously. "The wind changed just like that, in a second."
Unsettled, he bogeyed No. 2 and fell into a temporary tie with Jim Colbert, who went birdie-birdie to open his round. (Colbert, however, failed to capitalize and eventually dropped from title contention with a double bogey at No. 10. He finished with a 73 and in a tie for third place with John Jacobs, who was playing with Irwin and Aoki but was never more than an afterthought in the title chase.)
By the back nine it was Irwin and Aoki in something of a match-play showdown, as the adverse conditions had virtually eliminated the remainder of the field and negating the chance of anyone still on the course shooting a low score.
Irwin bogeyed both No. 9 and No. 10, the latter drawing Aoki into a share of the lead. From there it was a game of tick-tack-toe, with Irwin regaining sole possession of the lead at No. 11 but missing opportunities to pull away and eventually taking a bogey at No. 17 that brought Aoki back into a share of the lead.
"I just kept leaving the door open," Irwin said. "I just couldn't close the door and that was because of my poor putting."
Ironically, his putter won the tournament for him on the 18th. Looking at a relatively straight 15-footer for the victory, Irwin put it right on line and watched in satisfaction as the ball found its way into the cup.
"It had a bit of a break initially," Irwin recounted, "and after six feet it was tracking real good. At three feet, it was right on line."
And his arm was in the air waving it home, a victorious salute from the exhausted star of the PGA Senior Tour.
Senior notes
The amateur portion of the Las Vegas Senior Classic was won by Steve Braccini of the famed Barton Creek Country Club in Austin, Texas. ... With his fourth win in seven tournaments this year, Hale Irwin is off to the fastest start in Senior Tour history. ... The $150,000 first prize ups Irwin's 1997 total to $746,531, or $106,647 per tournament. ... Irwin's Senior Tour career money total is $3,161,475, or $75,273 per tournament. ... Combined with his winnings on the PGA Tour, the 52-year-old Irwin has taken home $9,038,049 as a professional golfer. ... Irwin had this to say about the weather conditions and the pond that parallels the 18th fairway: "I kept waiting for someone to wind surf across that lake." ... Irwin's round of 65 on Saturday established the course record. ... With his Sunday round of one-over par, Irwin's streak of consecutive sub-par rounds was stopped at 12. "It doesn't matter a lick to me," he said with a certain contentedness. ... Isao Aoki came within 10 inches of a hole in one on the 145-yard 12th. He hit a 5-iron. ... First-round leader Gil Morgan dropped from contention over the weekend and finished in a tie for seventh. ... ... Gibby Gilbert had Sunday's low round with a 67. He had the advantage of teeing off at 9:40, almost two hours before the final group. ... Statistically, the par-5 6th hole was the easiest in tournament play and the par-4 13th was the toughest. ... Next stop for the Senior Tour is Birmingham, Ala., and the Bruno's Memorial Classic this weekend.
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