Toshiba Senior Classic: Original champion is off to a surprisingly

hot start in 2000

Richard Dunn

NEWPORT BEACH - George Archer, the original Toshiba Senior Classic

champion, is playing his first year on the 60-and-over super seniors,

while maintaining full-time status on the Senior PGA Tour.

But few, including Archer, expected him to be among the top three money

leaders on the senior tour after five events in 2000.

“I have no idea (why it’s such a hot start),” Archer said Wednesday,

prior to teeing off in the pro-am of the sixth annual Toshiba Senior

Classic at Newport Beach Country Club.

“I did a lot of hunting last fall and got away from golf, and I was

fortunate over there in Hawaii (at the MasterCard Championship) to be a

winner.”

The 6-foot-6 Archer, who said playing on the Senior PGA Tour is “like

finding money in your coat pocket,” has pocketed $258,626 already this

year ... and most of the players are just warming up.

Archer, who typically takes time off in the summer to avoid the hot,

humid days on the East Coast, continued to sizzle last week at the

LiquidGolf.com Invitational in Sarasota, Fla., where he shot

four-under-par 68 in the first round and five-under 67 in the second,

finishing at 10-under for the tournament.

And, with 19 senior tour titles under his belt, Archer is seeking his

20th this week at the Toshiba Classic and is looking to become the

event’s only two-time champion.

“We don’t play many old golf courses, and this is one of the few,” Archer

said of Newport Beach Country Club. “Most of the courses are new

developments where they’re trying to sell houses.

“But (playing at new-development courses) is something we just expect.

That’s why we’re playing for more money now, and everything is bigger and

better.”

Archer, playing his first season on the Georgia-Pacific Super Seniors,

the “tournament within a tournament” in which there are 18 on this year’s

schedule, captured the inaugural Toshiba Classic at Mesa Verde Country

Club in 1995, shooting a final-round 64.

At the time, Archer had considered retiring at season’s end because of a

degenerative hip, but that victory changed his mind, and, later in ‘95,

he won the Cadillac NFL Golf Classic and decided to undergo

hip-replacement surgery.

“The fact that I needed a hip replacement bothered me, because no one had

come back and done well (on the senior tour),” Archer said. “Some guys

had bad hips and never played well again.”

Prior to winning at Mesa Verde CC, Archer would take a daily dose of

Indocin, an anti-inflammatory agent, before teeing off. Then, finally, in

1996 he underwent right hip replacement surgery.

Archer, who has won three times at the Northville Long Island Classic,

said after winning the inaugural Toshiba Senior Classic: “Golf is a crazy

game ... you do things you’re not supposed to do.”

Tall players aren’t supposed to be any good, either, but Archer has

proved them wrong throughout his career, winning 12 times on the PGA

Tour, his biggest victory coming at the 1969 Masters.

Archer, who has had seven major surgeries in his life, including his hip,

left shoulder (1987), back (1979) and left wrist (1975), was named the

senior tour’s Comeback Player of the Year in 1997 and Co-Player of the

Year in 1991.

Archer shot 68 and finished tied for fifth among senior tour pros in

Wednesday’s pro-am. Here are the top-10 finishers:

Tom McGinnis (65), Dean Overturf (67), Dale Douglass (67), Lanny Wadkins

(67), Tom Kite (68), Kikuo Arai (68), Bob Charles (68), Jim Colbert (68),

Archer, Dana Quigley (69), John Bland (69) and Fred Gibson (69).