Golf: Toshiba Classic feeling like a major

Richard Dunn

NEWPORT BEACH - The electricity in the air Thursday at Newport

Beach Country Club wasn’t just because of bright sunshine after certain

rainy days.

For members of the Senior PGA Tour, the seventh annual Toshiba Senior

Classic, which starts today with first-round action at 8 a.m., represents

the best in 50-and-over golf competition.

Some are legends with only an outside chance of winning this weekend

and some are rookies you’ve never heard of, but the 78-player Toshiba

Classic field is arguably the best ever, and that’s saying a lot

considering the traditionally close finishes.

There have been one-stroke victories every year by Toshiba champions,

except one, and the 2001 event should provide much of the same

competition. Maybe even better.

“I think you’ll see that tight grouping again on Sunday,” said 1998

Toshiba Classic champion Hale Irwin, the event’s all-time leading money

winner at $287,548.

“We’ve got a great field out here. It almost feels like a major

(championship).”

Second-round action of the Senior Tour stop at Newport Beach continues

Saturday, with the final round slated for Sunday.

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

top players on the Senior Tour, primarily because of the traditional

style golf course, large purse ($1.4 million this year) and the fact that

the event is early in the golf season and players are anxious to play.

But this year’s field could be the strongest ever, mainly because of

the timing of other Senior Tour events in a revised schedule, which sets

up three straight California stops, beginning with the Toshiba Senior

Classic.

Of last year’s Senior PGA Tour money leaders, this year’s Toshiba

boasts a field that includes 33 of the top 34 players. (Each year, 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 tour money list, is the only player on the exempt list not playing

this week, because of television commitments.

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

money title and every Player of the Year since 1992, as well as newcomers

Tom Watson and Raymond Floyd.

Floyd, 58, usually stays home in South Florida during the winter

months. But, this year, he committed to play in the SBC Senior Classic at

Valencia Country Club, and, since he was out here anyway, decided to play

in the Toshiba Classic for the first time. Floyd is sponsored by SBC.

Following the Toshiba Classic on the new West Coast swing next week is

the SBC Classic, an 11-year-old event which was moved from October to

March.

After that is the new Senior Tour stop in San Jose, the Siebel Classic

at Coyote Creek Golf Club.

In previous years, the Toshiba Classic, 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.

Jim Colbert’s two-stroke victory in 1996 was the only time a Toshiba

Senior Classic champion enjoyed a margin of victory greater than a single

shot.

Murphy and Gary McCord (1999) won playoffs, while Irwin shot a

course-record 62 on Sunday to come from five strokes back and leapfrog

past 11 players on the leaderboard, winning miraculously on his way to

another Player of the Year season, claiming his first of seven tournament

titles.

Irwin was helped at 17 by the Famous Bunker Rake, which stopped his

ball from rolling into a lake, allowing him to get up and down for par on

his way to a course record and victory.