Drawing to an inside straight

When you hit the mark once, the expectations for you remain at that

level, whether you’re shooting cue balls in the side pocket or

raising money for charity through a professional golf tournament.

In the case of the Toshiba Senior Classic at Newport Beach Country

Club, the most philanthropic stop on the Champions Tour, each year’s

goal is to reach $1 million -- a nice, round figure -- in charitable

donations.

And, since much of the weeklong tournament’s financial results are

generated through five pro-ams squeezed into a three-day package, it

appears that next month’s Toshiba Classic is well on its way to

eclipsing the $1-million self-imposed standard for the fourth

consecutive year.

That’s because all 348 pro-am spots for the 2003 Toshiba Senior

Classic are sold out -- all but two, that is.

In a similar arrangement as last year with Mr. Personality Fuzzy

Zoeller, tournament officials and Roger Dunn Golf Shops are

sponsoring a Toshiba Senior Classic Opportunity Drawing. The winner

of the raffle gets a chance to play in the Monday Pro-Am with

Zoeller. Each ticket is $10 and no more than 2,000 tickets will be

sold. One Monday Pro-Am spot is valued at $2,750. All proceeds of the

raffle will benefit the tournament’s lead charity, Hoag Hospital.

Tickets for the opportunity drawing are available at six Roger

Dunn Golf Shops in Southern California: Anaheim, Long Beach, Los

Angeles, Mission Viejo, Santa Ana and Seal Beach. The drawing will be

held at noon on Saturday, March 15 at the Santa Ana Roger Dunn store.

“We’re always looking for unique ways to get the community

involved in the tournament and to get fans even closer to the

action,” Toshiba Senior Classic Tournament Director Jeff Purser said.

“Ten dollars is a small price to pay for what would certainly be the

golf round of a lifetime We expect a significant turnout but we’ll

have two winners, so the odds should be pretty good for everybody who

enters the drawing.”

The Toshiba Senior Classic Opportunity Drawing winners will both

receive all the amenities of the Monday Pro-Am, including full

hospitality during the day, breakfast and an awards ceremony with the

Champions Tour players, 18 holes of golf, a custom executive golf

gift package, two weeklong clubhouse badges and 10 tournament

tickets. They will play with Zoeller for nine holes and another

Champions Tour player for the other nine holes.

With the news of the pro-ams, the ninth annual Toshiba Senior

Classic March 17-23 is a virtual lock to remain atop the tour’s

charitable-giving list.

The $1.55 million event plays host to 81 Champions Tour pros. For

tickets, or more information: (949) 660-1001 or log on to

ToshibaSeniorClassic.com.

*

Last year’s Toshiba Senior Classic became the first event in

senior tour history to donate more than $1 million to charity in

three consecutive years. The tournament raised $1,011,000 for charity

in 2000, $1,035,000 in 2001 and $1,001,920 last year.

“The charitable achievements of this tournament are a tremendous

source of pride for Toshiba and its employees,” Toshiba executive Rod

Keller said. “The fact that the Toshiba Senior Classic continues to

break new ground on the senior tour in terms of charitable benchmarks

is all the more rewarding.”

Good ticket sales and good weather, which usually go hand in hand,

are other key factors in hitting seven digits on the bottom line. A

strong player field, which is expected again this year, contributes

to the sizable galleries the tournament attracts each year.

In five years as managing operator of the tournament, the Hoag

Hospital Foundation has raised more than $4.7 million for charitable

purposes. Hoag was named the Senior PGA Tour’s inaugural Charity of

the Year Award winner in 1998.

Prior to ‘98, the event suffered through some difficult years,

highlighted by an acrimonious and sometimes comical split between the

former operator and Newport Beach Country Club. The tournament was

about to disintegrate. Things went on between the two parties that

one PGA Tour official said had never happened before. But Hoag

entered the picture in August 1997 and ran its first event in ’98.

Three years later, the Toshiba Senior Classic became the first stop

on the senior tour to join the $1 Million Club for Charity, an

amazing turnaround with a remarkable story.

*

The Toshiba Classic, moved to a later date in 2003, will be played

in the spring for the first time. The dates for the competitive

rounds (March 21-23) are later than any other time in tournament

history.

This year’s event will be played during the fourth weekend in

March. In 2000 and 2001, the championship rounds were held on the

first weekend of March. Last year, those rounds were played on the

second weekend in March.

“We asked the senior tour to move us back in the schedule, so we

believe this is a positive move for us,” Purser said. “While last

year’s weather was spectacular, we believe our chances of having

ideal conditions get better as we move later into March.”

This year’s Toshiba Classic will once again be preceded by the SBC

Senior Classic in Valencia. The two weeks following the Toshiba

Classic will be open weeks for the tour, which not only changed its

name this year but scaled down the number of tournaments from 37 to

31.

Each of the last two Toshiba Senior Classic events have attracted

30 of the previous year’s top-31 money winners, making the Newport

Beach stop a perennial home of one of the strongest fields on the

tour.