Golf: Hoag wins big again at Toshiba Classic

Richard Dunn

NEWPORT BEACH - The Toshiba Senior Classic, once on the verge of

collapsing because of management problems, is setting the record straight

again.

The only tournament in Senior PGA Tour history to surpass $1 million

in charitable proceeds has now reached the milestone in back-to-back

years.

Last year, the Toshiba Classic donated a total of $1,011,000 to

charity, a tour record in net operating proceeds from a single year,

despite the cancellation of the final round of the 2000 event at Newport

Beach Country Club.

This year, Hoag Hospital, the managing charity of the Senior PGA Tour

event, came out another big winner.

Toshiba Senior Classic proceeds have now exceeded $3.5 million in the

four years since Hoag became the tournament organizer and lead charity.

“We’re very pleased to have once again raised $1 million for Hoag

Hospital and several other important local charities,” tournament

co-chairman Hank Adler said. “We got three days of dry weather and

another record-setting donation.”

The $1 million check for 2001 represents an estimate of tournament

proceeds. Final donation figures for the Toshiba Senior Classic will be

announced in about six weeks, when the accounting is complete.

“We want to thank everybody involved in making the Toshiba Senior

Classic the charitable leader on the Senior Tour,” tournament co-chairman

Jake Rohrer added. “We couldn’t have achieved this milestone without our

title sponsor, Toshiba Computer Systems Group, our many tournament

sponsors and our nearly 1,200 volunteers.”

In 2000, the Toshiba Classic became the first tournament in the

21-year history of the Senior Tour to top $1 million in charitable

contributions. The previous tour record of $938,000 was set in 1999 by

the Coldwell Banker Burnet Classic, played at Bunker Hills Golf Club in

Coon Rapids, Minn., outside Minneapolis.

Rohrer and Adler were largely responsible for operating the hospital’s

mini-tour event, the Taco Bell Newport Classic Pro-Am, before the Senior

Tour asked Hoag to take over as managing charity of the then-struggling

Toshiba event in May 1997.

In their first Senior PGA Tour event in 1998, the Hoag volunteers, led

by Adler and Rohrer, helped raise over $600,000, a tour record for a

first-year managing charity.