Casper Content on Senior Tour

Billy Casper was at Mesa Verde Country Club Thursday afternoon, extolling the virtues of the senior golf tour, and, well, he should.

Casper, who turns 64 in June, last won a regular PGA tournament 20 years ago--New Orleans, 1975--a year before Tiger Woods was born. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1978, has 11 grandchildren and readily concedes his game is on the back nine.

“I’m starting to lose a little distance now,” Casper says. “I don’t play near as well as I used to.”

But last year, he played 16 events, Senior and Super Senior combined.

He won $154,553.

That beats most pension plans, and more than a few NHL annual salaries.

“It’s crazy,” Casper says. “There will be 42 Senior tournaments played in 1995, with purses totaling over $40 million. I was looking at something last week that said the prize money has increased by more than $3 million just from last year. It’s incredible. It’s the greatest growth in any sport.”

Casper claims he is “more popular now than when I was on the regular tour. I’ll play a couple weeks of golf and when I come home, between photos and Pro Set golf cards, I have at least three hours of signing every time.”

Any theories why?

“I don’t know, it’s just amazing,” he says. “People have lived with us for years and years and years. They’re familiar with us. Most of the guys on the (regular) tour today, you don’t know them. There’s a different man (winning) every week.”

Different men with different faces. Stern faces. Unhappy faces. Too many of them stash their personalities in the bottom of their golf bags, playing each stroke so close to the standard-issue argyle vest.

“You’ve got fellas like (Greg) Norman, you’ve got fellas like Fuzzy (Zoeller), you’ve got probably a handful, or two handfuls, of ‘em who have got great personalities,” Casper says. “And if you take the time to get to know the young guys, a lot of them have great personalities.

“It’s just that so many of them are just so . . . so engrossed in what they’re doing. It’s because of the stakes. The purses are so big now. There’s more pressure.”

Casper, among the field scheduled to play at Mesa Verde during next month’s Toshiba Senior Classic, the first PGA-sanctioned event to be held in Orange County since 1968, believes the Seniors wax their younger brethren when it comes to the pro-am portion of every tour stop.

“The backbone of the senior tour has been the pro-ams,” Casper says. “Invariably during the first few years of the senior tour, we heard this comment from the amateurs: ‘I have played pro-ams for years and years with players on the regular tour. I now find that I am playing with a young man I don’t know, who in the course of 18 holes says 10 or 15 words to me. At the end of four, 4 1/2 hours, he goes his way, we go our way, he doesn’t want to see us again and, once more, we don’t care whether we see him again.

“ ‘We can come out with the seniors and play with two fellas that we’ve been following all our lives. Go to social functions and rub shoulders with them. We can communicate with them. They’ll help us with our golf game if we ask them. What a wonderful experience this is.’

“This,” Casper concludes, “is the reason for our success.”

The periodically offbeat human-interest story doesn’t hurt, either. Last week, a Texas cattle farmer named Robert Landers played in the Senior Royal Caribbean Classic in Key Biscayne and charmed the gallery, if not the fairways, by hacking away with his homemade clubs, worn tennis shoes and mutton-chop sideburns.

“Home On The Range,” brought to you by ESPN.

“What a story!” Casper exclaims, rocking back in his chair. “You couldn’t believe the people talking about it. It’s the American dream. Right out of the cow pastures onto the golf course.

“They should have put some cows out there on the green. Make him feel at home.”

At 63, Casper now double-dips on the tour, competing at both the Senior (50 and over) and the Super Senior (60 and over) levels. Although he reports “you start losing your power at 60--your nervous system might not be as good and you might not putt or chip as well,” the Super Seniors “can still move the golf ball around.” The play is decent and the pay even better. Last year, Casper’s Super Senior earnings amounted to more than $110,000.

At these wages, Casper can see himself playing one day on “the Super Duper Duper Senior tour. You’ll have to be 90 or older.

“It’ll be a three-day tournament, one hole a day. And the winner of the tournament is the one who can remember his score.”