KAILUA-KONA » A year ago, John Cook started the final day’s final nine holes at the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai with five straight birdies. He sizzled to a two-shot victory over Tom Lehman at the Champions Tour’s season-opening event on Hawaii island.

Today, 41 golfers tee off at Hualalai beginning at 8:50 a.m. All but eight have won an event on the senior tour the past two years, or won a major the last five. Curtis Strange, Tom Kite, Hale Irwin, Ben Crenshaw, Lanny Wadkins, Corey Pavin, Larry Nelson and Fuzzy Zoeller received sponsor’s exemptions.

Pavin, 52, is coming off a tie for 38th at last week’s Sony Open in Hawaii, a stop he won in 1986 and ’87. He also received an exemption for that event.

"It was good for me to play," said Pavin, who expects to make only two more PGA Tour starts in 2012. "It’s hard to play the first tournament of the year, hard to get my golf legs under me. I guess you could say I was preparing for the Champions Tour by playing the regular tour."

He finished sixth at Mitsubishi last year, coming up six shots short of Cook despite a bogey-free week. He has played his last 64 holes at Hualalai without a bogey.

His relatively short Champions Tour career is also bogey free, apparently.

"It’s fun," Pavin says. "You are around people you’ve known 30 years. It’s very comfortable, very competitive still and you play for good prize money. It’s nice out there."

Particularly at Hualalai, which has hosted the first event of the year since 1997. No winner has ever shot in the 70s and last year’s average was 68.746.

Over the past decade, the winning score here — the average has been 21 under — has been among the three lowest on tour. Loren Roberts’ 25-under 191 in 2006 sets the pace for lowest score ever on the tour. He comes in with a streak of 18 consecutive sub-par scores at Hualalai.

"This course is really conducive to low scores, more so than a lot," says Lehman, 2011 Player of the Year. "There’s not much rough, the greens are perfect. Everybody can reach the par 5s, so there are lots of chances at birdies."

And then there is the atmosphere, in Hawaii and on this elite, no-cut, no-worries tour.

"The Champions Tour is more than the small cliques on the regular tour," Lehman says. "The whole group here is very much in the same boat. It doesn’t matter who you hang out with. It’s really a family feeling. A very comfortable atmosphere.

"That promotes the ability for players to let ‘er rip and go low. We have nothing left to prove. We’re just enjoying the game and shooting the best we can. And we enjoy the people we’re playing with."

Irwin, a part-time Hawaii resident, is the oldest player here at 66. The three-time Player of the Year is making his 17th consecutive start at Hualalai, where he won in 1997 and 2007 — the last of his 45 Champions titles. Irwin has won nine official titles in Hawaii and three Senior Skins Games.