An elite group of 35 seniors who do not live on a limited income will tee it up this week in the MasterCard Championship at Hualalai.

The Big Island tournament opens with Pro-Ams today and tomorrow. The first round is Friday.

MasterCard is the first of 29 Champions Tour events in 2006. The golfers will play for $52.75 million in 17 states, Mexico and Scotland. This week's limited field is playing for $1.7 million.

Dana Quigley, 57, became the oldest player to win the Arnold Palmer Award as the tour's leading money winner last year. Quigley collected almost $2.2 million, with more than $400,000 coming here where he won the MasterCard and finished second, to Hale Irwin, at the Turtle Bay Championship.

Irwin will go for an unprecedented sixth straight Turtle Bay title next week on the North Shore.

Hawai'i's David Ishii is making his Champions Tour debut at Turtle Bay on a sponsor's exemption.

Quigley outlasted Tom Watson in a three-hole playoff at Hualalai last year. It was one of 17 Champions events separated by a single stroke.

Watson opened with consecutive 64s, but Quigley caught him with a final-round 66, then won his first title since the 2003 MasterCard. Quigley will go over $1 million in Hualalai earnings this week, in his ninth appearance.

Quigley went on to win another playoff last year, capturing the Bayer Advantage Classic over Watson and Gil Morgan. But, his phenomenal ironman streak came to an end at 278 consecutive events when he missed the Senior British Open. Ironically, Watson won that event in a playoff to get a senior addition to his five British Open titles.

The players in this week's field have won a combined 36 PGA Tour majors and 45 more Champions majors.

All the Hualalai winners are in this year's field with the exception of George Archer, who passed away last year. In 2000, Archer became the oldest player in tournament history to win (60 years, 3 months, 23 days). Archer was also the youngest winner, at 50 years, 3 months, 6 days, when he won the 1990 event, then called the Senior Tournament of Champions and played at La Costa in Carlsbad, Calif.

Irwin won the first MasterCard in Hawai'i, in 1997. Other champions were Gil Morgan ('98), John Jacobs ('99), Larry Nelson ('01), Tom Kite ('02), Quigley ('03 and '05) and Fuzzy Zoeller ('04).

Scott Hoch and Fred Funk are expected to make their Champions debuts this year after they turn 50, in March and June, respectively. The 2007 class includes World Golf Hall of Fame members Nick Price, Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo and Bernhard Langer, along with Mark O'Meara and John Cook.

The Golf Channel will have live coverage each day of the two senior events. ESPN will broadcast the revamped Wendy's Champions Skins Game, Feb. 6 from Wailea's Gold Course. The new alternate-shot format will feature the teams of Jack Nicklaus and Watson, Arnold Palmer and Peter Jacobsen, Raymond Floyd and Quigley, and Gary Player and Irwin. The purse has been raised to $770,000.

Pro golf events in Hawai'i continue through the rest of next month, with the Hawai'i Pearl Open (Feb. 10-12), followed by the first two LPGA full-field events of the year — the SBS Open at Turtle Bay (Feb 16-18) and Fields Open in Hawai'i (Feb. 23-25) at Ko Olina.