Name dropping in Newport

Richard Dunn

Stars have always been linked to golf in Newport Beach.

While entertainers such as Ray Charles, Willie Nelson, Huey Lewis

and Barbara Mandrel have performed at past parties for the Toshiba

Senior Classic or former Newport Classic Pro-Am, the pro-am events

for both have had no shortage of celebrities teeing it up.

Last year, Mark McGwire quietly showed up and played in a Monday

pro-am round, while an endless list of former and current NFL players

have dominated the pro-am landscape at Newport Beach Country Club,

which hosted all 23 Newport Classic Pro-Ams and all but one week of

Toshiba Senior Classic Pro-Ams.

The Newport Classic, a now-defunct mini-tour event, served as sort

of a precursor to the Toshiba Senior Classic, since the same

volunteer group has operated as tournament manager for Hoag Hospital.

In 1996, comedian Rick Rockwell served as master of ceremonies of

the Newport Classic gala and played in the pro-am, during which he

said, “The two best balls I hit all day were when I stepped on a

rake.”

Rockwell made headlines in March 2001, a little more than a year

after the television show “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?”

and Rockwell’s subsequent annulment from Darva Conger. Considered by

many to be the low point of the “reality TV” phenomenon, the show had

a flock of women ready to compete for the chance to marry

multi-millionaire Rockwell, and, in the end, everyone was talking

about the scandal between them. The show aired February 15, 2000, as

Rockwell proposed to Conger.

In the first year of the Crosby Southern Pro-Am (later called the

Newport Classic), longtime film star Fred MacMurray, also of “My

Three Sons” television fame, played as a celebrity.

When Hoag took over as the managing charity of the Toshiba Senior

Classic, super agents Leigh Steinberg and Jeffrey Moorad sponsored a

Monday Celebrity Pro-Am in 1998, an event featuring Warrick Dunn of

the Tampa Bay Buccaneers; Tony Gonzales of the Kansas City Chiefs;

and future Chargers quarterback flop and No. 2 overall draft pick

Ryan Leaf.

Other sports celebrities that year included John Lynch of Tampa

Bay, former Heisman Trophy winner Gino Toretta and multiple-time

world boxing champion Sugar Ray Leonard.

In 1999, former Los Angeles Rams Fearsome Foursome member Deacon

Jones was the headliner, while other golfers included: Matt Bahr, who

kicked for two Super Bowl champions in his career, the 1979

Pittsburgh Steelers and the 1990 New York Giants; Lem Barney, who

became only the fifth cornerback to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame;

Dick Bass, the first Los Angeles Ram to rush for 1,000 yards in a season; Tom Browning, who pitched a perfect game in 1988 and was a

member of the 1990 World Series champion Cincinnati Reds; Doug

DeCinces, the former Angels third baseman; Vince Ferragamo, who

quarterbacked the Los Angeles Rams to Super Bowl XIV; Mike Haynes, a

Hall of Fame cornerback for the New England Patriots and Los Angeles

Raiders; and football Hall of Famers Ken Houston, Leroy Kelly, Tom

Mack, John Mackey, Hugh McElhenny, Bobby Mitchell, and Joe Perry.

Chuck Muncie, Junior Seau, Bruce Smith, Jack Snow, Greg Townsend,

Kellen Winslow and Jack Youngblood also teed it up in the pro-am.

Troy Aikman was the pro-am event’s top attention-getter another

year.