Golf column: In keeping with tradition, here’s the real Top 10

After a Senior PGA Tour record nine-hole playoff, then a

course-record 62 by Hale Irwin in the final round with the help of a

now-famous bunker rake, who could have imagined the Toshiba Senior

Classic would get more entertaining?

Gary McCord’s mind-boggling play (and antics) during his five-hole

playoff victory in the 1999 Toshiba Classic at Newport Beach Country Club

is the Newport-Mesa golf community’s No. 1 golf story of the year.

The fact that the senior tour stop at Newport Beach has produced such

riveting theater three years in a row is almost scary.

So, as we take our final swings of the 1900s and usher in the new

millennium (according to popular belief), here are the unofficial Top 10

Golf Stories of 1999:

1) McCord, Tommy Bahama’s best-dressed golfer and the senior tour’s

top showman, was better known as a CBS golf commentator before arriving

at Newport Beach.

But McCord, a wisecracking 50-year-old with a barbershop quartet

mustache, won for the first time in 383 PGA and Senior PGA Tour events,

over a span of more than 25 years, and cashed in with a career-best

$180,000 as the winner.

McCord drained a four-foot birdie putt on 16 to end the playoff and

beat John Jacobs, who chipped in for eagle from 90 feet on the first

playoff hole. As the greenside gallery erupted, Jacobs danced a jig, did

his best imitation of Chi Chi Rodriguez’s famous “sabre dance” and then

did a backward somersault.

And everybody thought McCord was the camera hog.

On that first playoff hole, McCord matched Jacobs when he sank an

incredible 18-footer for eagle. Jacobs, stunned, said later he has played

enough with McCord to know that “he wouldn’t make that putt for a $100

Nassau, let alone $180,000.”

With the TV cameras rolling, McCord motioned with a curled index

finger for Jacobs to come and fetch his ball from the cup at 18 -- and

the gallery went ballistic again.

The two continued their match-play duel for four more holes, before

McCord got sudden life in sudden death.

Al Geiberger, 61, had a chance to win the tournament in regulation,

but blew a four-foot putt to force a four-man playoff (rookie Allen Doyle

was also in the field).

2) Santa Ana Country Club’s Marianne Towersey, after competing for 35

holes in the match-play final of the Southern California Championships at

Mission Viejo Country Club, arrives just in time for “tee time” in the

third annual Tea Cup Classic at Mesa Verde Country Club and wins the

event for the second year in a row.

Towersey, who lost her putter in transition that day and borrowed one

for the Tea Cup Classic, might have been dragging by day’s end, but she

won again by seven strokes to cap an amazing 53-hole day on Aug. 13.

3) On March 12, Pelican Hill Golf Club announces it will host the

Diners Club Matches in December, the first major golf tournament at the

Tom Fazio-designed resort courses, which are owned by the Irvine Co. The

event will be televised live by ABC.

4) Jack Nicklaus makes his inaugural Newport Beach appearance at the

Diners Club Matches, and, in the first round, fires an unoffical 62 as

the Nicklaus-Tom Watson team defeats Doyle and Dana Quigley, 5 and 4.

For Nicklaus, who split a $200,000 winning purse with Watson after

beating Bruce Fleisher and David Graham, 1 up, it topped a busy week.

He won a father/son event in Florida with his son, Gary, opened two

golf courses in Mexico that he designed, then arrived here to win the

made-for-TV Diners Club Matches.

5) Basketball Hall of Famer George Yardley, chief celebrity and

ultimate role model, hosts the “Yardley IV” Golf Classic at Newport Beach

Golf Course in late June, an event that has evolved into more than a

successful fund-raiser for Newport Harbor High’s golf team.

“Yardley IV” for the first time features an essay contest (won by

Harvard-bound golfer John Swigart) and creates a community-service

vehicle for its students.

The event, headed by Buck and Colleen Johns, raises a staggering

$40,000 for the program, more than a lot of good football programs in

Orange County.

6) Jerry Anderson, Newport Beach Country Club President, is named the

Southern California PGA Golf Professional of the Year. Anderson also won

the section’s top honor in 1985.

7) Former Los Angeles Ram center Rich Saul, battling colon cancer,

serves as co-chairman of the 10th annual Corporate Challenge Cup at Santa

Ana to benefit the American Cancer Society.

After 16 chemotherapy treatments and eight more remaining, Saul is

still able to shoot par at SACC.

Saul had been involved with the American Cancer Society for eight

years, but was hit by a cruel twist of fate earlier in 1999 when he was diagnosed with colon cancer.

Co-chairman Chris Massey said the ’99 event raised $100,000 for the

first time.

8) In the middle of his career-best season, Costa Mesa High product

Dennis Paulson of the PGA Tour makes an appearance at the Costa Mesa

Community Golf Classic at Mesa Verde, the city’s chamber of commerce

fund-raiser.

Paulson, who would go on to win more than $1.3 million on the tour in

‘99 and finish 27th on the money list, donates just about as much during

the event’s live auction. Paulson says fame and fortune won’t change him.

9) Local men’s club champions are crowned, with the final one of the

millennium at Big Canyon Country Club, where Steve Collins ends a 10-year

hiatus and wins his fifth career men’s club title, sinking a downhill,

20-foot birdie putt on 18 to win by two shots over Ron Maggard and Gary

Singer.

Joe Stafford captured the Newport Beach men’s championship in May,

Chris Veitch won Santa Ana’s in June and Pete Daley clinched Mesa Verde’s

on Aug. 22, winning a one-hole playoff against Randy Thorne.

10 a) (tie) In the Costa Mesa City Championship Aug. 7-8 at Costa Mesa

Golf & Country Club, Greg Sato has a remarkable first day, then shoots

one-over 73 in the second round and is forced into a playoff with

6-foot-6 Bruce Samaklis.

Sato made an eagle three on No. 14 for a two-stroke lead, then was

tied by Samaklis. Sato won a three-hole playoff. He shot three-under 67

at Mesa Linda on the first day.

To tie Sato in regulation, Samaklis shot five-under 67 at Los Lagos.

The event is formerly known as the Will Jordan Classic.

10 b) The Newport Beach Open, making its bid to become a mini-tour

event, is won by professional Perry Parker, who shoots two-under 69 at

Newport Beach Country Club.

Parker, a former UCI standout, wins $1,000 and a Cartier watch, edging

John Burkle and Bruce Hooper of Newport Beach by one stroke.

Richard Dunn’s golf column appears every Thursday.