Toshiba Senior Classic column: Dream lies

Richard Dunn

Playing favorites in this field is tough, but we’ll give it a rip

off the tee.

For starters, any living, breathing golf fan would have to root for

Arnold Palmer, making his debut in the 2000 Toshiba Senior Classic at

Newport Beach Country Club. As if I wasn’t excited enough about Arnie

showing up, even my latest box of Wheaties features the 70-year-old

legend.

For weeks, Toshiba Classic officials talked about this one being the best

ever, the year they raise the bar, the year they reach $1 million in

charitable giving to Hoag Hospital, and all that.

But no one figured Arnie’s Army would be coming. No one except tournament

director Jeff Purser, that is. No matter where Palmer is listed on the

leaderboard, there will be no bad lies.

“It is entertainment,” Purser said of the Senior PGA Tour, which stops in

the area next week for the sixth consecutive year, “and there isn’t a

much more entertaining player than Arnie.”

The event, which is on a three-year roll in terms of edge-of-your-seat

finishes, has yet to have a player win twice. But, this year, with George

Archer and Hale Irwin off to a hot start, maybe we’ll have our first

two-time champion.

Archer, winner of the inaugural Toshiba Classic at Mesa Verde Country

Club in 1995, is third on the current senior tour money list ($236,855)

and appears healthy, having played in all four official events, while

Irwin is sixth among the year’s early money leaders in only two events

($174,675).

We all remember Irwin, the two-time leading money winner on the senior

tour, and his course-record 62 in the final round of the 1998 Toshiba,

assisted by the famous bunker rake at 17, which miraculously stopped his

ball from rolling in the lake as he got up and down to save par.

Even 1996 Toshiba winner Jim Colbert -- like Palmer, a survivor of

prostate cancer -- is playing reasonably well and is ranked 24th on the

money list ($66,855).

If last year’s champion, Gary McCord, wins again, they should check his

bag for extra clubs. This guy’s a television commentator, part-time

author and humorist, and even a dabbler in Hollywood scripts. McCord

plays the senior tour as if it’s a hobby. It would be too humiliating for

his peers if he won again.

But, hey, golf is, after all, a four-letter word.

Bob Murphy, the ’97 Toshiba winner who is fulfilling prior commitments

next week, is the only former champion not expected to play.

But as far as personal favorites, one of the players I like next week is

John Jacobs, a veteran of this golf course who appeared in more Newport

Classic Pro-Ams (formerly the Crosby Southern) than any other golfer

(13). It’s Jacobs’ turn on the victory stand, especially after last

year’s upset loss in a five-hole playoff to McCord.

Jacobs had it won on the first playoff hole, but only a magical script by

the showman McCord stole the lead role. Jacobs’ chip for eagle from 90

feet turned the 18th green into a circus last year. He should have had a

dance partner the way he was flopping around. Jacobs went from twinkle

toes to Chi Chi’s sword dance, then fell backward onto the turf.

But McCord kept the playoff going with a stunning 18-foot eagle putt and

the best act on the Senior PGA Tour for 1999 was underway.

Other favorites? Wouldn’t it be something if Gary Player won. It would be

almost fitting for this tournament, already showered with celebrated

moments, if the 64-year-old gentleman captured the title here that would

make him only the second golfer in history to win an event in six decades

(Sam Snead is the other).

Player, one of only four players to win all four of golf’s major

championships, has been a fan favorite in Newport Beach every year,

giving impromptu clinics on the putting green and driving range, signing

autographs relentlessly, never turning down an interview and waving and

smiling at virtually every turn.

The most traveled player on the senior tour is also its greatest

ambassador. So, for sentimental reasons, I’m also pulling for Player.

I’m also hopeful for the tour’s new kids on the block: Tom Watson (if he

plays), Lanny Wadkins and Tom Kite, the ultimate grinder.

It’s hard not to cheer for Allen Doyle when you see his backswing. Makes

you feel better about your own game. At age 60, Lee Trevino would be a

noble champion. Al Geiberger, who almost won in regulation last year at

age 61, is always on the short list of hopefuls.

But the appearance of Palmer is more than a pleasant surprise. It’s

shouting from treetops and rattling cages; it’s Rocky Balboa coming home

to Philadelphia for his first championship fight; it’s applauding golf’s

most popular player in the sunset of his brilliant career.

So, in a three-month span, Newport Beach will have played host to perhaps

the two greatest golfers of all time -- Palmer and Jack Nicklaus -- in

back-to-back events. Neither, it is believed, had ever stepped foot on

this soil before, and now they show up almost at once.

Nicklaus played with Watson in the Diners Club Matches at Pelican Hill

Golf Club in December, making his first local playing appearance, and now

Arnie will play for the first time in the Toshiba.

It doesn’t get any better than that.

For tournament officials, who serve as Hoag Hospital volunteers, it’s an

equitable reward getting Palmer. The Senior PGA Tour’s Charity of the

Year in 1998, Hoag has turned the ship around since the event was held

together by pins and needles in May 1997 under a different operator.

After Hoag came to the rescue, the tournament has made a remarkable

recovery from a dark past that included lawsuits, a bankruptcy, a

controversy over a $25,000 food and beverage invoice, four different

tournament directors in the first four years, and great uncertainty about

the tournament’s future on the senior tour schedule.

But, it has come a long way, baby, and these days the Toshiba Classic is

considered the class of the senior tour with over $1.5 million donated to

charity in the first two years under the direction of chairmen Hank Adler

and Jake Rohrer.

Hoag’s recent three-year agreement with Toshiba and NBCC has paved the

way through 2003, but it appears 2000 is the breakthrough with one big

army headed this way.