KAHUKU — The first break from the wind that Jim Thorpe got was when he walked into the media center after completing his second round yesterday in the Turtle Bay Championship.

"There's no wind back here," said Thorpe, who trails Gil Morgan by two shots going into the final round of the Champions Tour's first full-field event of the year at the Palmer Course.

"Maybe the hardest conditions I've ever played in on the Champions Tour," Thorpe said. "Wind continues like this (today), I think the winning score's already posted."

That would be 7-under-par, which is where Morgan stands after his even-par 72 was good enough to maintain the two-stroke lead he had starting the day. Morgan is at 137, staked by his 65 in Friday's opening round.

Golfers talk about the wind being a 2- or 3-club difference. Yesterday, they could be talking about the gusts up to 30 mph making a seven-stroke difference. Besides Morgan, four others shot seven strokes higher than the day before.

"The wind was super Kapalua," said Dick McClean, a former Maui pro who's playing on a sponsor's exemption. "Diabolic is a good's word for it, especially if you're on the wrong side of the green."

"It was definitely a guessing game out there," said Thorpe, who shot a 71 to be at 139, along with Bernhard Langer.

"Today was really, really tough," said Fred Funk, who won here last year by 11 strokes, a Champions Tour 54-hole record, with a torrid 23-under-par 193.

What a difference a year makes.

"Ten under is looking awfully good," added Funk when asked what the winning score might be at the end of today.

It might not even be that low if the winds continue to howl, as predicted.

That's almost a given considering only one score was posted in the 60s yesterday — the fewest since 2002 when there were six in the 60s in the third round that year.

The only guy to do it yesterday was Don Pooley, who had to birdie his final hole to shoot a 69.

Pooley wasn't surprised there was only one player in the field posting that number.

"No, it was a very difficult day to play," he said. "But I am surprised that I'm the one that shot the lowest."

Surprising or not, the 69 enabled Pooley to move up 43 places on the leaderboard to a tie for 15th with seven others at 143.

"Anything under par is a heckuva round," said Funk, whose second consecutive 70 put him at 140 and still in the hunt to make it two victories to start the Champions Tour. He came from behind last week to win the MasterCard Championship at Hualalai.

Funk, though, was still shaking his head over the winds of change from this year to the relative calm conditions last year.

"No. 2 is a brutal hole in the wind," Funk said. The difference was even more apparent at the par-5 third hole, also into the wind. Funk thought he nailed his drive there, only to have his caddy tell him that it was 71 yards shorter than what he hit there last year minus the wind.

As Thorpe said, "It's a guessing game out there."

The wind not only led to a loss of distance at some holes, it made putting difficult at every hole, according to Thorpe, a hulking guy who's not one to be pushed around. "It's hard to keep the putter steady when its blowing like that. Hard to make a nice smooth stroke."