By Greg Robertson
ESPN Golf Online
Saturday, September 30

Details
When	Friday-Sunday
Course	Tanglewood Park, Clemmons, N.C.
Par/Yardage	Par 70; 6,600 yards
Purse	$1.5 million (Winner: $225,000)
1999 champion	Fred Gibson
Tournament record	18-under 195 (Hale Irwin, 1997)
Television	None

The tournament

	Hole by hole
	Hole	Par	Yards
	1	4	418
	2	4	364
	3	3	165
	4	4	444
	5	4	400
	6	5	588
	7	4	345
	8	3	190
	9	4	430
	Out	35	3344
	10	4	399
	11	4	364
	12	4	460
	13	3	182
	14	4	395
	15	4	385
	16	4	373
	17	3	183
	18	5	515
	In	35	3256
	Total	70	6600

As the Senior Tour hits the homestretch on the 2000 season, five players find themselves in the thick of the race for player of the year and money titles.

All five will be on hand for the final stop on the East Coast before the season-ending Tour Championship in early November. Larry Nelson, Bruce Fleisher, Hale Irwin, Dana Quigley and Gil Morgan are well ahead of the pack on the money list with just five full-field events remaining.

Nelson has been the most amazing player of late, having won three times and finished second once in his last four starts. His win last week at the Bank One Championship gave him five this season and moved him to the top of the money list, but his hot streak goes much further than that.

Nelson enters this week's play at the Vantage Championship needing a sub-par score in the first round to set a new Senior Tour record. A 69 or better on Friday would be Nelson's 27th consecutive sub-par round and would break the record he currently shares with Morgan, who accomplished the feat in 1997.

Nelson is also one round shy of tying the Senior Tour mark for consecutive rounds at par or better held by Lee Trevino, Ray Floyd and Bruce Summerhays. But he may not hold it for long. Morgan is almost as hot, currently at 24 straight.

Over the past four tournaments, Nelson is an astounding 53-under with a scoring average of 67.1.

Irwin, meanwhile, should be happy to see Tanglewood Park. In five years of playing this tournament, Irwin has two wins and two seconds with a scoring average of 66.9. He's shot in the 60s in 13 of 15 rounds, holds the course record with a 62 and the tournament record at 195.

Fleisher, meanwhile, finds himself second on the money list, bumped from the top spot by Nelson for the third time this season. But each time, he has responded with a win and regained the lead.

Fleisher, too, should be pleased to see Tanglewood Park, where he shot rounds of 65-68-65 last year but came up three shots shy of Fred Gibson, who won for the first time last year. He birdied four of the final five holes to hold off Fleisher.

Next week, the Senior Tour begins a month in California, interrupted by a trip to Hawaii. First up is the Transamerica in Napa, followed by the Raley's Gold Rush Classic outside of Sacramento.