KAHUKU — Golf's version of payback struck an entire golf tour yesterday in the final round of the Turtle Bay Championship. Loren Roberts still got the big payoff, eagling the final hole to sweep Hawai'i's Champions Tour swing at the windswept Palmer Course.

A week after he won a shootout of historic proportions in the MasterCard Championship at Hualalai, Roberts was the last man standing in a golf war of attrition. It ended with Roberts and Scott Simpson, Hawai'i's adopted senior son, tied and putting for eagle on the final hole.

Only Roberts was 10 feet away and Simpson 50 feet. After Simpson lagged his putt close — "I didn't want to just gun it by because there is always a chance he could miss a putt" — Roberts shed his shocking funk on the greens by easing in his eagle for the win.

Roberts poured in 40 birdies in his first five senior rounds of the season. He did not have any yesterday, in an even-par round of 72 that left him at 12-under-par 204 for the tournament. His last-gasp eagle was just enough to hold off the tenacious Simpson, who sneaked into a tie by birdieing the 17th hole and ultimately lost by two with an anticlimactic three-putt on the 18th.

"I hit a perfect tee shot (on No. 18) and I got down there and had an absolute perfect number (188 yards over water, 199 to the hole) for the club I needed to hit," Roberts said, concluding his story of struggle with the happy ending. "I could just take a good, solid, normal 4-iron downwind, left to right. The yardage was perfect, it worked out perfect. And, considering the day, it was probably the best putt I hit and it went right in the middle.

"The last hole was a culmination of 17 holes of just slogging through and an 18th hole when everything went perfect."

Roberts opened with equally brilliant rounds of 66 to create a four-shot gap over Simpson going into the final round. Challengers faded all day, turned back by vicious pin placements, Turtle Bay's persistent gusts and the fact that $1.5 million was up for grabs in the first full-field event of the Champions' 27th season.

Those that didn't fade were simply too far back. Tom Watson and Hajime Meshiai both shot 68, the day's best score. It was enough to pull Watson into a tie with Don Pooley for fourth, a shot behind 63-year-old Isao Aoki. Meshiai reached the top 20.

Simpson trudged on, despite three-putting the first hole for his only bogey and going birdie-free on all the par-5s.

"Obviously, starting the day I was pretty sure Loren was going to run away with it," said Simpson, who lived in Kailua for five years in the 1990s. "When he wasn't playing that well and he couldn't get putts to drop ... although he made a huge putt on 10 ... I was just a little off here and there. The last few holes were pretty exciting."

Meanwhile, after five near-flawless rounds that looked ridiculously easy and added up to 37-under par, Roberts worked for every cent of his $225,000 first prize yesterday.

He started by missing a 5-foot birdie putt on the first hole. One of the game's premier putters — and most easy-going personalities — grew increasingly agitated as he jabbed through a pair of three-putts on the fifth and sixth holes.

"When I made that three-putt I really got out of rhythm," Roberts said. "I three-putted the next hole from the front fringe and from then on it was a struggle. I was in between clubs a lot and just having to fight it all day."

At the turn, Roberts, who led from his final hole Friday, was dazed and confused, and tied with Aoki and Bruce Summerhays for first at 10-under. But after they bogeyed the 10th, Roberts salvaged par, and possibly the tournament, with a clutch 18-footer down the slope.

"That kind of slapped me upside the head enough to hang in the back nine," Roberts said. "The whole thing came down to 18 and I probably made my three best swings of the day."

The only other player to catch him was Simpson, who grinded his way to the 1987 U.S. Open championship and nearly outlasted Roberts yesterday for what would have been his first Champions victory.

Simpson closed his deficit to one with a wonderful tee approach shot to two feet on the 14th. Roberts one-putted the next hole to save par and Simpson did the same on the 16th, then drained a birdie from 12 feet to tie.

"I was thinking, 'This is so cool,' " said Simpson, who started his Hawai'i vacation by caddieing for Punahou graduate Parker McLachlin at the Sony Open in Hawai'i. "It was just fun to be up there in contention."

Simpson, who turned 50 in September, had three top-25 finishes in four senior starts last year. He has already exceeded that, after admittedly not being in contention for more than five years. Now he feels like he is back home.

"Now, to be in contention and especially to play well ... I felt like I played real well, hit a lot of good shots and that's probably what's really encouraging," he said. "I'm really looking forward to the rest of the year. I love it out here."

Roberts is also praising the promise of the senior tour. He leaves Hawai'i nearly $580,000 richer, after gaining a share of 18th at the Sony Open, then beating on golfers his own age the past two weeks. Six of his eight PGA Tour victories came after he turned 40. He now has three senior victories in eight starts since turning 50.

Roberts won by just one last week despite closing with a spectacular 61. Yesterday he was running on empty until the final hole.

"I was talking to myself, I tried to slow myself down and speed myself up," Roberts said. "I was just working it, trying to get in some sort of sync. To be honest, the meat of my game is my putting. If I'm putting well, then it frees up the rest of my game. If I get a little out of sync with the putter sometimes the rest of my game struggles, too. That's just the way I am.

"I didn't want it to come down to the last hole, but at least I got up on the last hole and said, 'This is a hole that you can do something.' Scott got up and hit a great tee shot. ... And then I hit a really good one exactly where I was looking. I tried to tell myself instead of looking at squandering the lead I tried to tell myself, 'You really have an opportunity to do something great.' That's the way I tried to look at it."

Hale Irwin's attempt to win this tournament a sixth straight year officially ended when he closed with a 70 yesterday. It was his first sub-par round of a week that opened with Irwin a combined 100-under par at the event. He didn't get his first birdie until the first hole yesterday, being shutout even in Thursday's Pro-Am.

"The first hole got the monkey off my back," said Irwin, who set a personal record for birdie futility and tied for 38th. "And, I birdied three so it felt like I was off to the races.

"I think that it's rare out here, in any tour, that a pro won't make at least one birdie in a day. And I went three days without. It's kind of a sobering experience."

NOTES

Former Kailua resident and Hawai'i State Open champion Scott Simpson got $132,000 for second place — his best senior finish. Pearl Country Club Director of Golf David Ishii (72-217) tied for 29th and won $11,100 in his Champions Tour debut. Honolulu's Dave Eichelberger (75-222) shared 48th, and won $4,800. Stan Souza, also from Honolulu, had his best round yesterday (72-225) and tied for 57th — a shot behind Gary Player and John Jacobs — to win $2,850.

The Wendy's Champions Skins Game will be Feb. 6, at Wailea's Gold Course. The Pro-Am will be the day before, on Super Bowl Sunday. The new team format will feature Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson, Arnold Palmer and Peter Jacobsen, Raymond Floyd and Dana Quigley, and Gary Player and Hale Irwin, in an alternate-shot format.

The Hawai'i Pearl Open is the following weekend (Feb. 10-12), then the LPGA will officially open its 2006 season back here with the SBS Open at Turtle Bay (Feb. 16-18). That is followed by the Fields Open in Hawai'i (Feb. 23-25) at Ko Olina.

Until yesterday, Hale Irwin was the last player to win a tour event by shooting even par in the final round. Irwin did it at the 2004 Senior PGA Championship. The last player to win with eagle on the last hole was Tom Purtzer at the 2003 SBC Classic. ... Loren Roberts is the first player to win his first two starts of the year since Larry Nelson did it in 2001. Roberts is only the third player in Champions Tour history to win back-to-back events to start a season. He is also the first to go wire-to-wire in this tournament since it moved to Turtle Bay in 2001. ... Isao Aoki's third-place finish was his first top three since he was second at the 2002 Royal Caribbean Classic. ... Ben Crenshaw eagled the final hole to tie for seventh. It was his second-best senior finish and first top 10 since 2003. ... The scoring average for the week was 73.111, nearly a shot higher than last year and more than five shots higher than last week.

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.