Golf: Still plenty of bang for your buck

Richard Dunn

Fund-raising is difficult for anybody, especially on the heels of

Sept. 11, which has altered the way money is given to charity in this

country.

Despite the economic climate, Toshiba Senior Classic co-chairman Hank

Adler, the event’s financial backbone since the old days of the Newport

Classic Pro-Am, believes 2002 will be another huge success for the only

in-season professional golf tournament in Orange County.

“We all work at this so we can make a large contribution to Hoag

Hospital,” said Adler, a volunteer along with co-chairman Jake Rohrer,

who takes a week’s vacation every year from his real job to serve as

field general of the pro-ams and volunteer committees, overseeing about

1,200 volunteers each year.

With Adler and Rohrer, who hired crack tournament director Jeff Purser

in late 1997, the eighth annual Senior PGA Tour event at Newport Beach

Country Club has become the most philanthropic stop on the 50-and-over

circuit.

And, even though fund-raising efforts for our nation’s local

institutions have suffered since 9-11, the Hoag Hospital Foundation,

which manages the Toshiba Classic, will once again finish among the

Senior Tour’s charitable-giving elite.

“We’ve made $3.7 million in the last (four) years, and we’re going to

have a very good year this year,” Adler said. “I’m not going to tell you

what that number is because some pieces still have to fall in place, but

we’re still going to have a good year in a very difficult economic

environment.”

Sponsors and members of the community who volunteer at the event or

play in the pro-ams are the heart and soul of the Toshiba Classic’s rise

to the top of the Senior Tour in a category (charitable giving) other

than great finishes, great fields and shaking weather.

If our unseasonably dry weather continues, this year’s Toshiba Classic

(March 4-10) could reach an all-time high in tickets sold.

Purser, who went against the wishes of Senior Tour officials last year

and allowed tee times to start as scheduled despite rain in the forecast,

gambled and won during the final round.

While he passed out cigars a day after and was thrilled with the

conclusion of the 2001 event (Jose Maria Canizares won in a nine-hole

playoff and the tournament raised another $1 million-plus for charity),

the conditions were an issue again. The 2000 final round was canceled due

to inclement weather.

“I want 70 degrees and sunny,” said Purser, whose event has since been

pushed back a week on the calendar.

“We got 60,000 to 65,000 fans (for the three-day weekend, including

17,000 to 18,000 on Sunday) in poor weather. If you consider we had

nobody for the Wednesday and Thursday pro-ams, that’s a pretty good

turnout. If we had great weather for a whole week, including Friday,

Saturday and Sunday, there’s your 80,000 to 90,000 people and $1.3

million to charity.”

Vice President and General Manager of Toshiba Computer Systems Group

Mark Simons, for one, was impressed with Purser’s leadership last year.

“We made a lot of comments about (Purser) being the best tournament

director, but I think anybody who can control the weather like he did

last year -- he held off the rain for at least 36 hours -- and anybody

who can have us going ... has got a lot of control that we as a

tournament can’t do above and beyond the call.”

While an estimated 17,500 attended the final round last year, the

educated-guess attendance by Purser for the Saturday second round was

between 20,000 and 21,000, the largest of the tournament, when the

weather was dry for the third straight day.

Purser arrived from the Midwest shortly after Hoag Hospital took over

as managing charity in August 1997.

“Hey, I’ve gotten rained out before and I’ll get rained out again,”

Purser said. “I’ve had entire greens under two feet of water and

tornadoes surrounding us (at a tour event in the early 1990s at

Youngstown, Ohio). There were five tornadoes within a five-mile (radius),

and one touched down a half-mile away. We had hospitality tents under

water. So what happened (in 2000) wasn’t that bad.”

A reader called Tuesday wanting to purchase tickets for the Toshiba

Senior Classic. For information or tickets: (949) 660-1001.

Richard Dunn’s golf column appears every Thursday.