The AARP Open is alive and well, thanks to a Southern Hills leaderboard that features old fogeys Hale Irwin and Loren Roberts.

Irwin is 56, old enough for senior discounts, bingo parlors and early-bird specials at Morrison Cafeterias. Roberts will be 46 next week, which means he has a 21-year head start on Tiger Woods. Together, Irwin and Roberts added a sense of perspective and context to the pre-U.S. Open Tiger hysteria. Woods might still win this thing, but it won't be because the two 45-plussers phoned it in.

Irwin, a former Colorado defensive back, still looks as if he could piledrive you into the right hash mark. The guy owns three U.S. Open championships and sees no reason why he can't add a fourth, especially after Thursday's 3-under 67. Bring up the age thing and you can almost hear the gray bristles on the back of his neck stand on end. "Age is a three-letter word," says Irwin, though you get the idea he treats it like a four-letter one. And when asked about his chances of cradling another trophy, Irwin announced, "My purpose this week is not to be ceremonial."

Then there's Roberts, who tooled around Southern Hills with Irwin in just 69 strokes. Roberts is known as a dinker off the tee, which isn't supposed to work on a course that features the longest hole (642 yards) in the history of the Open. But the guy can putt a BB into a thimble and he sank some sweeties during Thursday's round. "You have to have a lot of imagination, and that's what I like," says Roberts, who loves these greens. "You can hit it 10 feet [from the pin] all day and not necessarily have too many makeable putts."

Irwin and Roberts finished their morning work with hardly a stain on their shirts. Truth is, they both looked as if they could play another 18. Meanwhile, sweat-soaked guys such as Ernie Els looked like extras from "Body Heat."

"My mind was pretty unencumbered today and I hit a lot of solid shots," says Roberts. "And I think it helped me ... that I like Hale and I felt comfortable out there." The feeling was mutual. In fact, the pair of old-timers (a combined 44 Open appearances) are part of the same threesome for Friday's round.

Will Irwin keep hanging 67s on the leaderboard? Will Roberts find a way to massage Southern Hills' slippery greens for a few more 69s? Probably not -- but I wouldn't want to be the one to tell them. "At this point in time, I don't feel like I'm in over my head," Irwin says.

No duh. And wouldn't that be something come Sunday, seeing both Irwin and Roberts bobbing in red numbers. The folks at AARP wouldn't know what to do.

Gene Wojciechowski is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at gene.wojciechowski@espnmag.com.