Is there any nostalgia left?

Richard Dunn

What was once a good ol’ boy network of senior golfers has become

perhaps less nostalgic and more competitive.

Indeed, the stakes are higher, the fields are bigger and the icons

are fewer when you consider who is not playing regularly this year

(Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player to name three).

And, for a capper, the tour itself is having a bit of an identity

crisis with the word “senior.” In 1980, when the PGA Tour started the

Senior PGA Tour, tour officials had no problem with a tour occupied

by and associated with seniors. It is now the Champions Tour.

Maybe that’s what it should have been called all along.

“If we go back to the beginning, it was more of a parade of

champions,” defending Toshiba Senior Classic champion Hale Irwin

said. “Let them come in and display their skills -- sort of like a

parade. The rapid success of the Champions Tour led to a more and

more competitive environment. And I say that in a respectful way. Sam

Snead and those players that were in the very beginning, who had a

colorful personality, I think gave way to the more serious side of

golf, not to say that the players are any less fun to be around. It’s

a different generation that’s playing the game now.”

Tour officials in the past would claim the Champions Tour as a

unique combination of nostalgia and competition, but those words

haven’t been uttered lately.

Money leaders and tournament contenders are players named Bruce

Fleisher and Dana Quigley, not Nicklaus or Palmer or Sam Snead.

“Senior golf is probably going through a little bit of a down,”

Nicklaus said shortly before the 2001 U.S. Senior Open, and things

haven’t changed much since then, because this year the Champions Tour

has slashed tournaments and the prospects for growth do not look

good.

The seniors are playing for less prize money this year because of

at least four fewer official events (the Toshiba Senior Classic

increased its purse this year to $1.55 million, up $50,000 from

2002).

“I think the task at hand is certainly to provide entertainment,

but there is a great deal of money to play for that they didn’t have

in the beginning,” Irwin said. “It’s made a slow metamorphosis over

to a competitive environment. It’s very much a fun environment. As a

player, I think it’s great. We can still play the game at a

competitive level and make some money doing it.”

Some blame Tiger Woods, whose dominance has overshadowed much of

everything else in golf, for the scaling back of the Champions Tour

and LPGA Tour.

Irwin, a three-time U.S. Open champion who shot a tournament

scoring record 17-under-par 196 last year to win his second Toshiba

Senior Classic at Newport Beach Country Club, said the Champions Tour

gets tougher every year.

“I would definitely say (it has become more competitive) over the

last several years,” Irwin said. “You go back to 1997, I won nine events, Gil Morgan won six events. Since that time I think we’ve had

sort of a ratcheting up of the efforts of the other players. We have

seen some new players come along, the success of Fleisher and Doug

Tewell, we’ve had Allen Doyle, Jim Thorpe, players that weren’t

around in ’97 or ’98 certainly have made their mark on the game now.

Also Larry Nelson. They may have all pushed that bar up a little bit

from where we were just a mere five years ago, for instance, to where

we are. I’d say the caliber of golf has increased dramatically and

even more competitively. I think more and more players are able to

win and do win as we saw last (month) in Dave Barr.”

Thanks to the Georgia-Pacific Grand Champions for players 60 and

over, the nostalgia factor on the Champions Tour is kept alive.

Players like Lee Trevino and Chi Chi Rodriguez help define the tour’s

player personalities with varying degrees of emotional extremes.

Let’s just say that Chi Chi always shakes hands and never misses an

autograph or photo opportunity.

The tour continues to be televised by CNBC -- albeit Saturdays and

Sundays -- while The Golf Channel handles Friday coverage. The CNBC

association hasn’t exactly worked the way tour officials would like.

Among other things, finding viewers on the business-oriented channel

has been tough and it wouldn’t surprise anybody if the two parties

didn’t extend their agreement beyond 2003.