Fred Funk was so far ahead at last year's Turtle Bay Championship it was comical.

Trailing by eight shots as they made the turn, Tom Kite turned to Funk and grinned. "I'll press," Kite said, joking about the double-or-nothing bet golfers make as holes run short.

Funk laughed then and is still laughing now. He won last year's title by 11 shots at the Palmer Course, shattering a Champions Tour record for 54-hole events. Last week at Hualalai, Funk won the season-opening MasterCard Championship.

He opened the year at the Mercedes-Benz Championship and Sony Open in Hawai'i. His self-described "Hawai'i Slam," a perk the 51-year-old earned by winning on both the PGA and senior tours last year, has netted him more than $500,000 this month. Why not laugh?

The 50- and 60-somethings tee off tomorrow at 8 a.m. in the first round at Turtle Bay. The first full-field event features six golfers with local ties, including Hawai'i Golf Hall of Famers David Ishii and Dick McClean.

All are chasing Funk. He smoked the back nine on the Big Island Sunday to overtake Allen Doyle. A year ago on the North Shore, he closed with 64-64 to eliminate any chance of being caught. He became the 12th in tour history to go bogey-free.

The man known for his precise drives was third in fairways hit (86 percent), second in greens in regulation (83 percent) and led the field in putting. "I made everything I looked at," Funk says a year later, still in awe.

They might have been playing for second, but the rest of the seniors were hardly hacking. The average score last year was 70.957. In the seven years the event has been played at Turtle Bay, the best previous average was 72.338; every other year it was over 73, and almost 74 in blustery 2003 when the Palmer was the fourth most-difficult course on tour.

Japan's Kiyoshi Murota, who was second last year, is back and now represents Turtle Bay. He is hoping to follow the example of Dorothy Delasin, the resort's LPGA representative, who captured the Women's World Cup of Golf Sunday in South Africa.

NOTES

Monday's "Golf Hawai'i" show will feature 1996 Hawai'i state high school champion Parker McLachlin, now in his second year on the PGA Tour. The show will also focus on Waikoloa Beach Resort. Mark Rolfing's "My View" will be about the effectiveness of tour golf statistics. The program will premiere on The Golf Channel at 7 p.m. and re-air Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. and 9 p.m., and Feb. 4 at 1:30 p.m.