Peter Senior … Champions Tour regular

US Champions Tour regular Peter Senior will lead the Australian charge armed with the experience of appearing in a play-off in a senior major in the US and a number of other close calls.

Peter Fowler has been outstanding recently on the European Senior Tour, which will also provide Mike Harwood and Graham Banister. Mostly US based Aussie Graham Marsh is the fifth member of the team.

They will face a who’s who of golfing tradition with one of the feature pairings 62-year-old Tom Watson and Fred Couples.

“Playing with Tom is a treat. He hits the ball so pure,’’ Couples said this week. “I’ve known him a long time. A long time ago, I went to stay at his house and tried to figure out a little bit how to be a better player and all that.

Neither Couples nor Watson have won the Senior US Open previously and neither had played the links-style old course at Indianwood until this week.

“The greens are going to be tough. I try to pay attention to those. As far as the holes, there’s a few angles and a few holes you have to try to figure out,’’ Couples said. “I don’t think you need to play a course 10 times to do that. But around the greens, it’s pretty difficult.

The defending champion is Olin Browne while other top chances include Tom Lehman, Bernhard Langer, Michael Allen, Corey Pavin and Fred Funk.

The 2012 US Senior Open is being telecast in Australia on Fox Sports with live coverage beginning 5am – 9am Friday.

2012 US Senior Open Leaderboard.