Toshiba Senior Classic Golf: Hot on the trail

Richard Dunn

NEWPORT BEACH - As long as George Archer keeps bringing home

paychecks from the golf course at age 62, his wife, Donna, will keep

sending him out the front door.

“I keep amazing myself,” Archer said Tuesday during a quiet practice

day for the Toshiba Senior Classic at Newport Beach Country Club.

Archer, a regular on the Super Seniors circuit for players over 60,

apparently isn’t finished making his mark on the Senior PGA Tour.

Reminded of the fact that he won the inaugural Toshiba Classic in 1995

at Mesa Verde Country Club, Archer quipped: “I’ll always be No. 1 in this

tournament.”

But Archer, who at 6-foot-6 is the tallest man ever to win the Masters

(1969), doesn’t need history or nostalgia to speak for his golf game.

In fact, entering the eighth annual Toshiba Classic, in which Archer

is one of the few to play in every one, the gentleman from Incline

Village, Nevada, is off to one of his hottest starts in years.

Archer opened the Senior PGA Tour season with a smooth 70-74-72--216

at the MasterCard Championship in Hawaii, where he tied for 24th, then

shot 67-72--139 in the Royal Caribbean Classic in Key Biscayne, Fla.,

outside of Miami and finished at 5-under and tied for 17th.

“I had a good week in Miami. I hit the ball real well there,” said

Archer, who won the two-day Super Seniors event at Key Biscayne and

finished second last week in the 60-and-over field in the SBC Senior

Classic at Valencia Country Club.

Archer, who also carded a 66 in the second round of the ACE Group

Classic in Naples, Fla., posted his best finish of the young 2002 season

last week when he shot 75-71-72--218 at Valencia, which rated as the

toughest golf course on the Senior Tour since the 1997 Ameritech Senior

Open at Kemper Lakes Golf Club in Long Grove, Ill.

Tom Kite’s winning score of 4-under at Valencia was the highest

winning score in a 54-hole Senior Tour event since the 1998 St. Luke’s

Classic, where Larry Ziegler won at 2-under.

“I hit the ball real well last week. I keep surprising myself,” Archer

said. “Every time I think I’m through with golf and that it’s time to go

fishing, something happens and I wonder, ‘How can I do that?’

“So this year’s been a real pleasure after four tournaments ... my

wife will let me know when it’s time to stop playing golf; when I stop

making money.”

Archer, who expects to limit his playing schedule to 22 events this

year, has earned almost $100,000 on tour in 2002 and is 28th on the money

list -- second only to Jim Dent among players over 60.

Aside from the “normal arthritis and sore shoulders,” Archer has been

in good health. He has undergone seven major surgeries in his career.

At the time of Archer’s Toshiba win seven years ago (capped by a

final-round 64), he 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.

In 2002, he’s still trying to become the only two-time Toshiba winner.