SUNRIVER — Loren Roberts, Ben Crenshaw and Mark McNulty are going to have to agree to disagree in the debate over the best putters in the history of golf.

Any of the trio could be considered the best of their era, and all three had lunch together Tuesday at Crosswater Club after their rounds in the pro-am tournament.

So who do they think is the best?

“Ben says, ‘You two guys are the two best putters I’ve ever seen,’ ” said McNulty, the reigning Tradition champion. “And then I said, ‘No, no, no. You two guys are the two best putters I’ve ever seen.’ And Loren says, ‘You’ve got it wrong. You two are the best putters I’ve seen.’

“It was quite funny.”

The three do share a common thread when it comes to putting: They all use putters that are long past their prime.

McNulty’s flatstick of choice is a Bull’s-Eye model that the Zimbabwe native has been using for more than a decade, he said. For most golfers, that style of putter years ago went the way of persimmon woods and the New Kids on the Block.

“The three of us putt with old equipment,” McNulty said. “We all had a chuckle there.”

Things change

Jay Haas played in the PGA Championship last weekend at Oakland Hills Country Club near Detroit.

Haas, a nine-time PGA Tour winner who had not played on the regular tour since 2006, did not make the cut in Michigan. But the St. Louis native witnessed one major difference in the tour since he played on it.

“Accents, and in no derogatory sense,” Haas said Tuesday at Crosswater Club as he prepared to play in The Tradition. “It’s become such an international tour over there, more so than our (Champions) tour. We have our share, obviously, but for the guys of 20 and 30 years ago that played the PGA Tour that are now on this tour, it wasn’t such an international tour then. Now it is, and just in the locker room, the players and the wives alike, there is just more of an international flavor.”

On Sunday, Ireland’s Padraig Harrington became the first European winner of the PGA Championship since 1930, narrowly beating Spain’s Sergio Garcia.

Missing Oregonian

Portland native and fan favorite Peter Jacobsen pulled out of the pro-am event Tuesday.

Jacobsen, who has endured numerous injuries in the last two years along with knee and hip replacements, was sore after rehab work on his knee, a Tradition official said Tuesday.

Jacobsen, who had to withdraw from the 2007 Tradition because of back pain after playing two holes in the final round, is still expected to play when the four-day tournament gets under way Thursday.

Shrinking field

Fulton Allem withdrew from The Tradition on Tuesday morning, according to Champions Tour spokesman Phil Stambaugh.

Allem, who has two second-place finishes in his first full year on the Champions Tour, cited sickness.

His departure left the field at 68 golfers.

Pairings

The Champions Tour released the first- and second-round pairings Tuesday.

Jacobsen will play with all-time leading Champions Tour money winner Hale Irwin and reigning Charles Schwab Cup points champion Loren Roberts. The trio will tee off Thursday at 12:55 p.m. and Friday at 10:43 a.m.

Another trio of note, John Cook, Tom Kite and Jay Haas, tees off at 1:06 p.m. Thursday and at 10:54 a.m. Friday.

The golfers will be grouped by score for the third and fourth rounds. Play begins at 9:17 a.m. each day and is scheduled to finish at 6 p.m.