Hale Irwin  Hale S. Irwin (born June 3, 1945) is an American professional golfer. He was one of the world's leading golfers from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. He is one of the few players in history to win three U.S. Opens, becoming the oldest ever U.S. Open champion in 1990 at the age of 45. As a senior golfer, Irwin ranks first all-time in PGA Tour Champions victories. He is widely regarded as the greatest player in Champions Tour history. Along with Gary Player, David Graham, Bernhard Langer and Justin Rose, Irwin is one of five golfers to win official tournaments on all six continents on which golf is played. He has also developed a career as a golf course architect. Irwin was born in Joplin, Missouri, and raised in Baxter Springs, Kansas and Boulder, Colorado. His father introduced him to the game of golf when he was 4 years old. He broke 70 for the first time at the age of 14. Irwin was a star athlete in football, baseball, and golf at Boulder High School and graduated in 1963. Irwin then attended the University of Colorado, where he was a two-time All-Big Eight defensive back, as well as an academic All-American in football. He won the individual NCAA Division I Championship in golf in his senior year in 1967 and turned professional the following year. Irwin had 20 victories on the PGA Tour beginning with the 1971 Sea Pines Heritage Classic and finishing with the 1994 MCI Heritage Golf Classic, and won prize money of just under six million dollars. His 1994 Heritage win at the age of nearly 49 made him one of the oldest winners in Tour history. Irwin's tournament victories kept him ranked high among his peers - he was ranked among the top five in McCormack's World Golf Rankings in every year from 1975 to 1979, inclusive. He ranked in the top-10 of the Official World Golf Rankings for a few weeks in 1991. Irwin's first U.S. Open triumph came at Winged Foot in 1974 at the age of 29. In what became known as "The Massacre at Winged Foot", Irwin won with a score of 7-over par, the second-highest winning score in relation to par of any U.S. Open since 1945. The course conditions at Winged Foot in 1974 were described as "brutal". Johnny Miller and several other players suggested that the USGA had intentionally made the Winged Foot course setup particularly treacherous in response to Miller's record-breaking round of 63 at Oakmont the year before.