Toshiba Senior Classic: Moonshine McCord

Richard Dunn

NEWPORT BEACH - Coffee was hardly necessary for Tuesday’s

early-morning tee time with Gary McCord.

The defending champion of the Toshiba Senior Classic, McCord said he only

had about three hours’ sleep prior to his appointment as keynote speaker

of the golf tournament’s Community Breakfast, presented by Deloitte &

Touche, at the Newport Beach Marriott.

But with stories about mooning the Snoopy II Blimp from his television

perch to his wife’s new dog, a hairless Chihuahua named Rex, McCord gave

the near-capacity crowd a rib-tickling wake-up call with his hilarious

antics and a memorable recap of his life in last 24 hours.

McCord, a part-time CBS golf analyst and part-time golfer who created a

new chapter in Senior PGA Tour history in last year’s Toshiba Classic

with an unforgettable five-hole playoff victory, revealed the truth about

his remarkable 18-foot putt for eagle on the first playoff hole to extend

the playoff with John Jacobs.

“It was like neuro-Ping Pong (before the putt), knowing the guys in the

television truck were saying something about me,” McCord said. “But, the

thing is, I forgot to look at this putt.”

Bent over in a putting position at the podium, McCord said once he got

over the ball, there was no way he could retreat and line up his putt.

“If I had to back out, can you imagine what they would be saying in the

truck?” said McCord, who admitted he was paying more attention to the

ESPN television cameras than his long pressure putt to remain alive in

the playoff.

“If I get up out of this (putting) stance, they’d say I’m going to choke

and probably throw up all over my Foot-Joys. So I thought, ‘I don’t want

to come out of this thing, so just hit it. Hey, I’m probably not going to

make it, anyway.’

“So I stay in my stance and go with my gut, and the (ball) went in.”

McCord told the tale about how he landed his network television gig in

the mid-1980s, but one of his most enduring occasions involved his bare

buttocks high atop a TV tower at the 1994 World Series of Golf, won by

Spain’s Jose Maria Olazabal.

During a commercial break, McCord looked at the monitor in his tower and

noticed a camera was on him. He looked around, but couldn’t see a camera

anywhere. There were no greenside cameras, none under the tower, none

hiding in the trees. Finally, he realized it was a camera aboard Snoopy

II high above the golf course, which was panning in on him.

“They’ve got a camera that can catch a flea on a rat’s (tail end),” said

McCord, who relishes in attention-getting behavior and promptly pulled

his pants down to provide the blimp camera with a good moon shot.

“You know, you’ve really got to bend over if you want to give a good

one,” he added.

His director wasn’t happy and began screaming in his headset, “like he

usually does,” McCord said, and called him an “idiot,” which he “called

me that a lot.”

The CBS director told McCord that, even though it was during commercial

time, his mooning appeared throughout the country club television

monitors in hospitality tents and the clubhouse.

“Three ladies were having lunch and just threw up,” McCord said.

Some consider his humor more blasphemous than funny -- just ask the folks

at Augusta National who host the Masters and won’t have him back.

When asked after Tuesday’s breakfast about his narrative involving his

ban at the Masters, McCord said it was “a long story and it would take

about 20 minutes to explain it. It was seven years ago. They didn’t like

my attitude -- and I don’t blame them.”

Before arriving in Orange County late Monday night -- McCord said he

stayed in a Motel 6 in Garden Grove, because his reservations in Newport

were canceled, but at least he got “free coffee” -- the wisecracking

prankster lost in a playoff Sunday at the LiquidGolf.com Invitational in

Sarasota, Fla.

Concerned about making his 6 p.m. flight out of Tampa, so he could get

home (to Phoenix) in time for a Monday morning golf clinic, McCord had a

painful second-place finish. He missed a five-foot putt on the second

playoff hole that would’ve tied Tom Wargo, who rattled in a long birdie

putt on the water-guarded 18th hole. Even worse, McCord missed an easy

birdie putt on the first playoff hole, also the 18th.

But, after missing his scheduled flight home, McCord took a red-eye to

Phoenix, arriving in town at 4 a.m. “And I get up at 6 a.m. for the golf

clinic,” he said.

At the clinic, McCord said an interesting looking gentleman from outside

Des Moines, Iowa, who was wearing “knee-high black socks, plaid pants and

a Tony Bahama-type shirt,” began giving him a hard time. “What happened

in the playoff? How come you didn’t make those putts?” the visitor asked.

Later, McCord had lunch with his wife, Diane, and told the Marriott

breakfast crowd about an annoying kid who looked just like “Fester” on

the old television series “The Munsters.”

Then, when he finally got home, just in time for some laundry and to read

some letters he received in the mail, he sat in his new “king-back high

leather chair,” but discovered that his wife’s new dog did a number on

it. McCord booted him off the chair.

“My wife got this stupid hairless Chihuahua, and of all things named him

Rex,” McCord said. “If you’re going to get a dog, get a dog. And, yes,

the vet said he’s going to live.

“This is my life.”

McCord said it’s nice “having two jobs,” and people ask him why he

doesn’t play golf full-time -- considering he averaged more than $58,000

per start on the senior tour last year, his first full season.

“I tried playing full-time once, and I was pathetic,” he said.

The self-deprecating McCord had automobile license plates that read “NO

WINS” before capturing his first title -- PGA Tour or Senior PGA Tour --

in 383 career starts at the Toshiba Senior Classic in 1999.

Win, lose or draw, he’ll be good for a few more laughs at the 2000

Classic.