Golf: Vacancy created by vandal

Richard Dunn

As if Ron Benedict’s job as superintendent of the golf course at

Newport Beach Country Club isn’t tough enough with the steady rain this

week, some bozo has been making life even more miserable him.

Just prior to this week’s Toshiba Senior Classic, a time-honored stone

pine tree at the 16th hole was cut down by a vandal in the middle of the

night with a chain saw.

And, apparently, the culprit was pretty determined to eliminate it,

having used several other means to destroy the beautiful, 40-year-old

pine tree.

First, by trying to burn it down, according to Benedict, then with an

oil-based substance, then by digging around it to kill nutrients. All on

different occasions leading up to the Senior PGA Tour event this week.

“I had the (Newport Beach) Police out here twice,” Benedict said

Wednesday during a private golf-cart tour around a drenched golf course

to check out the puddles and miniature lakes on the greens and fairways.

Weird things are happening. Seattle gets a big earthquake and we get

buckets of rain. And somebody had an obsession with a pine tree.

Don’t know exactly what the poor pine tree did to the lumberjack who

cut it down, but my guess is that it snagged a few too many of his golf

balls.

When and if the Toshiba Classic is played Friday through Sunday, it

will be a much more difficult golf course than last Friday, when Benedict

sat with Senior PGA Tour agronomist Tom Brown and admired the course’s

condition at the 16th green.

“You wish they could play right now, don’t you?” Brown said to

Benedict.

Before the rain, the golf course was “flawless,” Benedict said.

Another problem for Benedict and his crew is the cancellation of

mowing, forcing the rough and fairways and collars and approaches to grow

thicker.

“Should we even get an opportunity to mow, we’ll have to get out the

swapper and bail some hay,” Benedict said. “The rough won’t even get

mowed. So, should we even get the opportunity (to mow), the rough for the

tournament will be tough, nasty, sticky stuff.”

Golfers in Wednesday morning’s Toshiba Classic Pro-Am played 18 holes,

including two pros who shot 65.

In the past six years, the Toshiba Senior Classic has attracted most

of the top players on the Senior Tour, but this year’s field could be the

strongest ever.

Of last year’s tour money leaders, this year’s Toshiba boasts a field

that includes 33 of the top 34 players. The top 31 players earn fully

exempt status for the following year.

Bob Murphy, the 1997 Toshiba Classic champion who finished 30th on the

2000 Senior Tour money list, is the only player on the exempt list not

playing this week.

Murphy, whose memorable 80-foot birdie putt at 17 capped a then-tour

record nine-hole playoff four years ago at Newport Beach Country Club,

can’t play because of commitments as a television broadcaster.

This year’s Toshiba field includes every winner of the Senior Tour

money title and every Player of the Year since 1992, including

first-timers Tom Watson and Raymond Floyd, who usually stays home in Palm

Beach, Fla., during the winter months and doesn’t travel.

Floyd, last year’s Senior Tour Comeback Player of the Year, is part of

a player-recruitment windfall with the tour’s new West Coast swing, which

includes three California stops in consecutive weeks, beginning with the

Toshiba Classic.

Following the Toshiba Classic will be the SBC Senior Classic at

Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles and the new Senior Tour stop in San

Jose, the Siebel Classic at Coyote Creek Golf Club. The 11-year-old SBC

Senior Classic was moved from October to March.

In previous years, the only PGA Tour-sanctioned tournament in Orange

County has never been followed by another West Coast stop, let alone two

in the same state.

Last year, the Toshiba Classic was wedged between events in Sarasota,

Fla., and Puebla, Mexico. In 1999, members of the Senior Tour traveled

from Naples, Fla., to Newport Beach, then back to St. Augustine, Fla.

Richard Dunn’s golf column appears every Thursday.