Toshiba Senior Classic: Get ready for March Madness

Richard Dunn

NEWPORT BEACH - In what is shaping up as one of the more

interesting Toshiba Senior Classic’s ever, the latest edition at Newport

Beach Country Club starts today with tee times at 8 a.m., an army for

Arnie and an abundance of possible champions.

Though Bruce Fleisher sits atop the Senior PGA Tour’s money list again

and is proving that he isn’t going away anytime soon, there many

similarly low- profiled golfers who are also capable of winning on any

Sunday.

With 27 of the senior tour’s current top-31 money leaders playing in the

sixth annual Toshiba Classic, including guys like No. 2 Dana Quigley and

No. 9 Allen Doyle who still feel they have something to prove, it should

be a wide open horse race for the $195,000 first-place prize.

The $1.3 million Toshiba, which has featured some of the greatest

finishes on the senior tour the past three years, will include for the

first time 70-year-old legend Arnold Palmer, while past champions George

Archer (1995 at Mesa Verde Country Club), Jim Colbert (1996), Hale Irwin

(1998) and Gary McCord (1999) will tee it up in today’s first round.

And, with marquee rookies Tom Kite and Lanny Wadkins in the field, rarely

has the 50-and-over circuit had this kind of depth with so many seniors

believing they can win.

Tom Wargo, currently fourth on the money list, won last week at the

LiquidGolf.com Invitational in Sarasota, Fla., and shot 66 in the pro-am

Thursday, an indication that he could be ripe for a title at Newport

Beach.

The victory by Wargo ended a drought of 120 consecutive starts on the

senior tour without a win. So maybe Wargo has found something in his

stroke.

The two-year dominance of Irwin and Gil Morgan is apparently over, even

though Irwin is eighth on this year’s money list. But, a win in the

Toshiba would give Irwin enough money to become the first Senior PGA Tour

player to surpass $10 million in career earnings. Irwin currently has

$9,820,160 in career earnings.

In terms of first-round leaders, get ready for a long list today, because

this event typically has a logjam at the top following Friday rounds. If

March is designated for basketball madness in the NCAA Tournament, then

sports fans haven’t watched the wild Toshiba Classic.

In each of the last two years, four players have been tied for the top

spot following first-round action, and today could be no different.

Archer won the inaugural Toshiba Classic, then Colbert won by two strokes

in ‘96, the largest margin of victory in the tournament.

In 1997, Bob Murphy, the only past winner not in the 2000 field, defeated

Jay Sigel in a memorable nine-hole playoff, which, at the time, was a

senior tour record. Murphy sank an 80-foot birdie putt at 17, flipped his

putter in the air, knocked off his straw hat and placed his hands on his

head in disbelief.

In ‘98, Irwin provided more magic by shooting a course-record 62 in the

final round to pass 11 players on the leaderboard and win.

Irwin got an assist from a bunker rake at 17, which stopped his ball from

rolling in the water as he got up and down to save par.

No one figured 1999 could top the drama of the previous two Toshiba

Classics, but, in possibly the most thrilling senior tour event of year,

Gary McCord won a five-hole playoff, turning it into a

“made-for-television event” with hilarious antics, along with John

Jacobs, rarely seen in golf.

In the four-man playoff, Al Geiberger and Doyle were eliminated on the

first hole, as Jacobs chipped in for eagle from 90 feet, then did a dance

to celebrate, performed an imitation of Chi Chi Rodriguez’s sword dance

and tumbled backward onto the fairway.

McCord, though, made an 18-foot putt for eagle to extend the playoff, and

ESPN had its best golf theater of the year.

Stewart Ginn was disqualified from the Toshiba field for missing his

Thursday 7:15 a.m. pro-am tee time. Frank Conner has replaced him.

Jacobs made a hole in one Thursday in the afternoon pro-am on the

par-three hole No. 8 (203 yards) with a five-iron. His amateur witnesses

were Tim Craig, Don Schrock, Pete Todd and Sam Inman.