Toshiba Senior Classic: Obscure champion

Richard Dunn

NEWPORT BEACH - If you still don’t know who Bruce Fleisher is,

check the list of Senior PGA Tour money leaders -- again.

For the second year in a row, the self-described journeyman professional

golfer is ahead of every big name on the circuit, and, from the looks of

things, is on his way to repeating as Player of the Year.

But, along with fame and fortune comes demands on his time and

distractions he never dreamed of. All Fleisher really wants to do is play

golf and earn money.

“Do I have to be (a household name)?” the easygoing Fleisher said, almost

sheepishly, as he relaxed in the Newport Beach Country Club locker room

Thursday before his tee time in the Toshiba Senior Classic Pro-Am.

Fleisher isn’t a Lee Trevino or Arnold Palmer in terms of national

recognition, but he’s making a name for himself now, whether he likes it

or not.

“I like (the attention) on one hand, but it’s a distraction,” Fleisher

said. “It’s nice to be admired by your peers.”

As two-time senior tour leading money winner and three-time U.S. Open

champion Hale Irwin popped into the locker room, he quipped: “He’s just a

rookie -- don’t listen to him.”

Just as Irwin retreated into the players’ locker room, Fleisher turned

and said, “You see, he wouldn’t say that a year ago.”

Indeed, life is different now for Fleisher, who wants to win as often as

possible, while he can. He realizes the proverbial window of opportunity

is between ages 50 and 55.

“Hey, I’m not going to kid you, I’m out here to make money and make my

life more comfortable,” he said. “I don’t need the adulation and

attention that goes along with winning. It’s wearying.”

Fleisher, atop this year’s money list after five events with $426,931 and

two titles already under his belt, missed last year’s Toshiba Classic. He

was expected to play, but the early part of 1999 took its toll on him.

The 1999 senior tour Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year and leading

money winner, Fleisher won seven official titles last year and became the

first ever to win his first two starts, when he claimed the Royal

Caribbean Classic and American Express Invitational in successive weeks.

“Don’t think for a minute that anybody out here doesn’t want to win,”

Fleisher said. “There are some guys, from what I’ve read, who say they’re

just out here to give back (to the game). I get a little annoyed when I

read someone say that they’re just here giving something back. If you’re

not here to win, why are you here?

“I’m very grateful for the opportunity to play on the senior tour, and

everything that has happened is beyond my greatest expectations.”

Fleisher, who was second at the 1998 Senior Tour National Qualifying

School to earn his initial exemption, finished second in his third start

last year. But the demands of sudden stardom drained him physically and

he wound up in the hospital for five days with dehydration.

“When I get sick, I really get sick,” said Fleisher, a genuinely honest

man with a mordant sense of humor, who remembers his days playing in the

old Crosby Southern Pro-Am at Irvine Coast Country Club (now Newport

Beach), a two-day mini-tour event operated by some of the same Hoag

Hospital volunteers who manage the Toshiba Classic.

Fleisher, who won the 1977 Crosby Southern and played in the event again

in 1986, hasn’t been back to the club since. But this week he makes a

triumphant return.

Fleisher repeated this year as champion of the Royal Caribbean Classic in

February, then, two weeks later, routed the field at the GTE Classic in

Lutz, Fla., beating his closest pursuer, Dana Quigley, by four strokes.

The GTE Classic victory made Fleisher, 51, the first player in senior

tour history to win nine events in his first 36 starts.

“I can’t tell you how fortunate I feel,” said Fleisher, who won over $2.5

million in 1999. “Prior to this, I was a survivor, I was a journeyman. In

terms of dollars and how much you make, I’ve never measured life like

that. But I am certainly reaping the rewards out here. How long is it

going to last? Who knows? I’m just going to try to be the best Bruce

Fleisher can be.”

Fleisher, a former club pro in the mid-to-late 1980s, has won tournaments

in Brazil, Jamaica and the Bahamas. The 1968 U.S. Amateur champion played

in more than 400 events on the PGA Tour, but won only once -- the 1991

New England Classic.

“Bruce still can’t believe what he’s doing,” Gary McCord said in Sports

Illustrated. “He has guys coming at him who were show ponies on the big

tour, and for years he was eating their dust. Only now he can handle

them.”

Fleisher is glad that Tom Watson, Lanny Wadkins and Tom Kite have arrived

on the senior tour to take some of the media attention away from the him.

But, he also said “there’s no reason not to go after (the money title)

again.”