Taking an inventory of the Toshiba Classic

So it’s Toshiba Classic week. Sure, I know what you’re thinking.

Seventy-eight of the top Champions Tour professional golfers roll into town, play 54 holes of tournament golf, grab some prize money and head out of town on to the next stop.

Actually, there’s more to this week of golf than meets the eye.

Try an excess of 3,000 local hotel room nights.

Sponsors who ante up big to support the tournament will be housed in 40,750 square feet of tents, filled with 5,800 chairs, 1,450 tables, 830 bar stools and 60 Toshiba LCD screens ? not to mention the cocktails and food that will be served.

Worried about the weather, whether it’s too hot or too cold? No problem. Relax in comfort with 270 tons of A/C and heating in those corporate tents.

Then there’s the tournament staff, the PGA and others who use 16 temporary trailers as office space in the adjacent parking lot.

Need to get the word out? Find one of the 110 telephone lines. Oh, and remember, keep the cellphones off. Golfers don’t like a phone ringing when they’re standing over a crucial five-foot putt, and some are not afraid to let you know it.

The corporate staff utilizes 160 radios and 16 channels. If there’s an issue, they’re prepared to deal with it.

Need directions, a restroom or a snack bar? You’ll be deluged with 1,440 signs telling you where to go. And I mean that in a nice way.

And if you do find one of those snack bars, perhaps you’ll enjoy one of the 9,000 hot dogs or 4,000 bratwursts grilling on the 50-foot Johnson Sausage rolling grill.

Want to be in the gallery, don’t worry, ride in from one of the surrounding parking lots. Buses will run a total of 650 hours.

How about 12,000 linear feet of fencing and 50,000 feet of rope. That separates you from them!

Imagine 4.6 miles of electrical cabling, 90 new power panels and more than 1.5 megawatts of generator power.

Hey, don’t forget, when golf finishes on Saturday, Fuzzy Zoeller, Dave Stockton, Andy Bean and Tom Purtzer will work with 400 kids and their parents in a special golf clinic on the driving range. Those are the kind of guys we’re dealing with ? those who know what it is to give back.

And for those pros on the driving range this week, that means 5,760 Titleist Pro V1x golf balls brought in as range balls. Those could fill up a few golf bags.

But what about the money?

Prize money: $1.65 million for the total purse. That includes $247,500 to the winner. Not bad for three days of golf. It beats a $2 Nassau.

Last year it was Mark Johnson. You remember, he knocked in the lob wedge on the last hole from 89 yards out to win by four strokes. Go, Beer Man!

And Toshiba, the longtime sponsor means more to the tournament than just the sponsorship money. During the last seven years they’ve anted up for $137,000 in scholarships to local high school students and 74 Toshiba laptop computers through their Toshiba Classic Scholarship Fund.

In the overall history of the Champions Tour, there have been some 800 tournaments. Only nine times in all those events has more than $1 million in net proceeds been raised. Six of those nine times have been our Toshiba Classic.

If that’s not enough, imagine that Hoag Hospital has benefited with $7.8 million over the last six years. That’s a lot of Band-Aids.

This year again the goal is a million dollars plus.

And, of course, the whole thing doesn’t work without the 926 volunteers, the 49 committee chairs, more than 70 Boy Scouts and a 100-plus Explorers.

Hank Adler, Ira Garbutt, Jeff Purser and his staff won’t disappoint us. The Toshiba Classic is more than a week. It’s a year of planning. And the numbers speak for themselves.

Do yourself a favor. Get out this weekend and enjoy the best that Newport Beach has to offer.

And if you get a chance, count the number of Porta Potties and let me know!