Cruising along with the players

Oh, sure, there are other ways to get close to the players on the PGA

Champions Tour without getting arrested, but volunteers in the

transportation committee of the Toshiba Senior Classic appear to have

it wired.

As you stroll through the main parking lot at Newport Beach

Country Club, there are rows of Escalade ESVs, Cadillac’s fancy

schmancy sports utility vehicle. Cadillac has been a sponsor of the

tour for years, and players are afforded the use of one at each stop.

Some fans follow their favorite golfers on the course, while at

times trying to look over crowds in the gallery three or four people

deep.

You can try to approach a player after he has left the putting

green or driving range, but good luck getting more than an autograph

and simple hello. There’s an excellent chance he’s on his way to a

pro-am round or trying to keep a tight schedule. After all, this is

where they come to work.

But for those volunteers serving in transportation, a committee

headed by Mary Boyle, it’s a cruise well worth the trip.

“You get to pick them up and talk to them,” said transportation

volunteer Dave Sill, who was busy tearing off a window emblem on the

passenger’s side of Gibby Gilbert’s Escalade from last weekend’s SBC

Championship at Valencia Country Club and replacing it with a Toshiba

Senior Classic insignia.

“We also get to met their families, and you get to interact with

the players on a more personal basis than at the golf course.”

Sill, working on the high-end Cadillac SUVs with fellow

transportation volunteer Lloyd Ikerd of Newport Beach, is in his

seventh year as a volunteer. For Ikerd, a member of the Newport Beach

Chamber of Commerce Commodores Club, it’s his second year.

“It’s a fun deal,” Ikerd said.

Boyle and her staff of about six made the trek up to Valencia

twice to pick up the SUVs on Sunday and another trip Monday. They all

drove up in a van and caravaned back down to Newport Beach to get the

vehicles ready for tournament week.

“Somebody gave Chi Chi Rodriguez a ride to his hotel,” Sill said.

“It’s a big convenience for the players.”

Volunteers in the transportation committee not only pick up

players at the airport and hotel, but members of the players’ family,

as well.

*

Ron Guziak, executive director of the Hoag Hospital Foundation,

said he anticipates excellent weather this weekend, and, if the

conditions are anything like Monday’s, Hoag could be in for another

banner year in terms of money raised through the tournament.

“This weekend, considering all that’s going on in the world, I

think people are really going to come out to the tournament,” Guziak

said. “They can be close to home and still get away.”

“People are going to come out in droves,” added Jim Dale, vice

president of Major Gifts for the foundation.

Hoag, the Toshiba Senior Classic’s managing operator, is the

tour’s philanthropic leader in charitable giving and will take the

national stage when the Newport Beach hospital will be featured in a

30-second public service announcement that will run prominently

during national TV programming, including PGA Tour and PGA Champions

Tour telecasts.

The spot will be filmed at Hoag this week with Gary McCord, who

won the event in 1999 and grew up in Orange County, as the star. It

will highlight the charitable accomplishments of the Toshiba Classic,

with particular focus on the new Hoag Women’s Pavilion, which has

benefited greatly from tournament proceeds and is now being built on

the hospital’s campus.

The Toshiba Senior Classic has been the charitable flag bearer on

the Champions Tour. In the past five years, the tournament has raised

more than $4.7 million for more than 25 charities, the most on the

Champions Tour.

The Toshiba Senior Classic was the first Champions Tour event to

raise $1 million for charity in a single year (2000), and last year

became the first to raise $1 million in three consecutive years.

In 1998, after running its first senior tour event, Hoag was

awarded the tour’s inaugural Charity of the Year award after raising

more than $700,000 through the Toshiba Classic.