Nine players will debut at the Turtle Bay Championship, beginning tomorrow at the resort's Palmer Course. The Champions Tour's first full-field event of 2007 runs through Sunday, with Loren Roberts defending his title and everyone chasing Hale Irwin — again.

The buzz around the senior tour before the season was about the impact of this year's cosmopolitan rookie class of exempt players. Nick Price, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, turns 50 Sunday and will begin his Champions career in two weeks. Mark O'Meara turned 50 on Jan. 13. Seve Ballesteros' 50th birthday is in April, Nick Faldo's in July and Bernhard Langer's in Aug.

All but Faldo, now spending most of his time announcing, are expected to play this year and challenge the dominance shown by Roberts and 2006 Player of the Year Jay Haas.

Irwin, 61, dropped to 22nd on the money list last year, but looked like the man to beat again last week. He lit up Hualalai Golf Club with 25 birdies for a five-shot victory in the season-opening MasterCard Championship.

After his first winless senior season, Irwin rallied with a dominance seen often the first 11 years of his senior career, when he won 44 tournaments and was Player of the Year three times. It was his 12th victory in Hawai'i, including the first four Turtle Bay Championships. Irwin has now won more than $4 million here. For good measure, he one-putted 32 times and came within a shot of shooting his age in a second-round 62 at Hualalai.

That probably won't happen on the wind-blown Palmer Course, whose last four holes used to be a landing strip for Army planes during World War II. While Hualalai played more than three shots below par, the Palmer is always one of the Champions' toughest courses. It was ranked seventh-hardest last year, at an average of 73.111. The 10th hole, home to just 13 birdies a year ago, was 13th-toughest on tour.

Eduardo Romero, the 2006 Rookie of the Year, will play here for the first time, along with Chip Beck, David Edwards, Fred Funk, Peter Jacobsen, Tim Simpson, Kenny Knox, Jack Renner and Denis Watson. Jacobsen competed last week for the first time since hip replacement surgery last summer, and tied for 19th.

Big Break VI men's champion Denny Hepler, from Indiana, will celebrate his prize this week when he plays in the Turtle Bay Championship. His victory earned a sponsor exemption. Hawai'i's David Ishii, who was 29th here last year, also received a sponsor exemption.

It's too early for the international rookies to play here, but everyone is waiting anxiously.

"This is an exciting year for the Champions Tour," said Tom Kite, who shared second last week. "We've got a strong influx of really talented guys coming out. We've got a lot of guys already out here playing really well. It's going to be unbelievably competitive, and unbelievably competitive with some real name power. Everybody is excited about it, but probably nobody is more excited about it right now than Hale Irwin."