FROM THE NEWSROOM:A groundbreaking tournament

The Toshiba Classic 2007 version is now in the books, and judging by the cash it brought in for Hoag Hospital, bookkeepers are plenty busy right now.

That’s because this year’s tournament raked in a record $1.31 million.

All week long, tournament organizers were boasting that the Toshiba Classic was going to make $10 million worth of charitable contributions to Hoag in 10 years.

This year’s tournament ensured that boasting was justified, as the official tally is now $10.1 million, including a $10,000 check from the PGA.

That money, as Hoag CEO Richard Afable noted last week, goes to help fund some of the hospital’s most prized care facilities.

For those of you unfamiliar with golf and professional golf in general, the Toshiba Classic at the Newport Beach Country Club is part of the PGA Champions Tour. The champions are PGA professionals over the age of 50, and the tournament features great golfing names from the past.

This year, Jay Haas won the tournament and collected more than $247,000 in prize money.

In the 28-year history of the Champions Tour, Toshiba is now the reigning king of charity fundraising.

In fact, out of 600 tournaments, only nine have raised $1 million in net proceeds in one year. The Toshiba Classic has done it eight out of 10 years.

As for the popularity of the tournament locally, that too is easy to boast about.

Some 80,000 people attended the tournament over the years, with 25,000 attending on Sunday alone.

Toshiba organizers say the tournament brings an estimated $20-million shot in the arm to the local and statewide economy. And it’s televised on the Golf Channel, which makes it especially fun to see the golfers teeing off and see familiar terrain and even familiar faces in the crowd.

For the Daily Pilot, we used the tournament as an opportunity to launch our new video reporting on our website.

Those who couldn’t watch the Shot from the Top of the Newport Beach Marriott, or the pro-am or the final round can get a glimpse of the action on our website at www.dailypilot.com/video/. And we have a staff gallery of photos from the tournament at www.dailypilot.com/gallery.

As usual, the Toshiba Classic was a great success, and there are lots of heroes who made it possible, most notably Toshiba America for being the title sponsor, Tournament Director Jeff Purser and outgoing Tournament Chairman Hank Adler.

See you all next year.