KAHUKU — Turns out Fred Funk clinched the Turtle Bay Championship Saturday.

Funk transformed the final round into a formality for the second week in a row, winning by a Champions Tour-record 11 shots Sunday at Turtle Bay's Palmer Course.

Funk shot an 8-under-par 64 Saturday to go into the final round with a three-shot advantage, at 15-under. Tom Kite was the only other golfer to get to 15-under Sunday, but he staggered to a double-bogey, bogey finish. That dropped him into a five-way tie for second with defending champion Loren Roberts (66), Japan's Kiyoshi Murota (72), Tom Purtzer (66) and Denis Watson (68).

Meanwhile Funk, the former University of Maryland coach, was firing a 64 sequel. He birdied six holes, including a chip-in at No. 7, to make the turn in 30 and take an eight-shot advantage to the back.

Kite cut it to six with two birdies on the next three holes. Funk felt he clinched it on the 13th, when Kite missed a birdie putt and Funk drained a 10-footer for par — his longest par putt of a bogey-free week. What happened after that meant little, except to Kite.

He yanked his second shot into the garbage at the 17th, leading to double bogey: "I had a bunch of mud on my ball, but I made a bad swing," Kite said.

He dunked his second shot on the 18th, leading to bogey. "Obviously I should have laid up," he said after his second runnerup finish in as many weeks. "I didn't need it and it was such an easy shot."

The anti-climactic finish cost him $42,000 and untold grief. "Nothing I hate more than stupidity," Kite said. "Nothing you can say about it except it was dumb. I don't play dumb golf."

Not that he, or anyone else, had a chance of catching Funk on another nearly windless North Shore day. Funk's 23-under finish was the third-lowest in tour history — "I missed a couple putts," he said with a grin and a shrug — and the best score in the 21-year history of this event, by two shots. It was the best in relation to par by five.

Funk might be the most precise ball-striker in the game. An envious Tiger Woods tells stories of Funk picking out mower marks deep down the fairway to aim at, then hitting them.

That legend was hardly lost here, as Funk finished third in fairways hit (86 percent) and second in greens in regulation (83 percent). But after the first two rounds he grumbled about his swing and gave all the credit for his low scores to some suddenly brilliant putting fueled by a simple widening of his stance. He led the field in putting with an average of 25 each day, and made six outside 20 feet.

Sunday's 64 was different. Funk called this his "best-ever week on the greens," but what made him happiest, beyond the $240,000 check and a decisive victory that will send him back to the regular tour for most of 2007, was that he believes he found his missing swing link.

"Last night I found something on my swing," Funk said, sounding as if he was 5 years old, not 50. "About five minutes before dark I was almost out of balls and I just made a little set-up change, which is all I've been working on. I widened my stance just like I did with my putting and all of a sudden I started striking it, not pulling it.

"I was real excited when I left the range and I didn't sleep at all last night because I didn't want to go to sleep thinking it wasn't going to be there today. When I got on the range this morning it was there again and I really couldn't wait to get out on the golf course."

While his accuracy hardly wavered, Funk averaged 256 yards off the tee Friday, 269 Saturday and 285 yesterday.

With Funk back in his PGA Tour prime — most of his $19 million in earnings came after 40 — the seniors are probably happy to see him return to the regular tour. He plans on playing it fulltime as long as he is competitive, with the Champions providing welcome diversions.

Turtle Bay might be the most welcome. "I was going to come back here regardless, because of where it is in the schedule and where it is," said Funk, whose 13-under total on the front nine would have been enough to win. "This is going to be a constant on my schedule."

No one could keep up Sunday. Murota, a Japan tour player in on a sponsor's exemption, was the closest coming in, at three shots back. He birdied two of the first three holes, but figured after he missed a 10-footer for birdie on the fifth that matching Funk was not an option.

"Nice player," said Murota, the finest senior player in Japan and a six-time winner on the regular Japan tour. "Easy. Every fairway, every pin, one putt, one putt ... great player, so easy."

Murota needed 32 putts Sunday after taking just 26 the first two rounds. If he had made his 16-footer for birdie on the final hole, he would have finished second alone. That $42,000 difference seemed minor when he started to weigh the relative attributes of his next event.

Murota is here to play the $80,000 Hawai'i Pearl Open, which he has won twice, in two weeks. But his Top-10 finish makes him eligible for the second Champions' full-field event of the season, the $1.6 million Allianz Championship in Florida, the same weekend.

"Right now Pearl is up here," Murota told a PGA official. "But maybe by tomorrow it will be the Champions Tour."

NOTES

The pros return to the Turtle Bay Palmer Course Feb. 15 to 17 when the LPGA stages its first full-field event of 2007, the SBS Open. A recent change in LPGA rules allows Hilo's Kimberly Kim, the reigning U.S. Women's Amateur champ, to play LPGA events in her home state, so she is in the SBS Open and the Fields Open in Hawai'i, the following week at Ko Olina Golf Club.

Kim, 15, moved to Arizona to ease her travel burden. She had earlier received exemptions into both tournaments, which are now freed up for other players.

The $80,000 Hawai'i Pearl Open is next up, Feb. 9 to 11 at Pearl Country Club. Tadd Fujikawa, 16, will be at Pearl in his first post-Sony Open appearance. The Moanalua sophomore became the youngest to make a cut in a PGA Tour event in 50 years two weeks ago at Waialae Country Club.

Fred Funk's 11-shot winning margin was the largest in a 54-hole senior event. Three players had won by nine previously, the last being Dave Stockton in 1993. Hale Irwin won the 72-hole PGA Seniors' Championship in 1997 by 12 shots.

Irwin, who won last week at Hualalai and at the first four Turtle Bay Championships, closed with a 69 to finish at 6-under 210. He earned $12,672 for his share of 28th to give him $1,340,000-plus in the 21 years this event has been played on Maui and the North Shore. Irwin also won it twice at Ka'anapali. Allen Doyle is next at $478,000.

With abnormally mild weather all three days, the average score this year was 70.597 — more than two shots lower than last year.

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.