Senior Event Offers Blast From Pga’S Past

Here is a chance to stroll down the fairways and back into the past.

Back to the day in 1959 when Bob Rosburg raced like a thief with a final-round 66 to overcome a sixstroke deficit and steal the PGA championship.

Back to 1969, when Orville Moody, fairly fresh off a 14-year Army career, captured the U.S. Open in Houston.

Or back to the days when the names Homero Blancas and J.C. Snead were frequently among the cluster atop PGA Tour leader boards.

Those players and 13 more Senior PGA Tour participants (14, perhaps, as promoters are still trying to land Jim Dent) will tackle MeadowWood Monday morning in the initial Cellular One Pro Classic.

The 18-hole event features the seniors, playing with groups of amateurs, in a shotgun start at 9 a.m.

A clinic by senior pro/trick-shot specialist Bob Brue opens the day’s events at 7:30. Tickets are $10 at the time of the event, but may still be obtained today for $7 by calling 325-SEAT.

Ken Still, Butch Baird, Don Bies, Dave Eichelberger, Lee Elder, Gibby Gilbert, Dick Goetz, Jerry McGee, Jimmy Powell, Dick Rhyan, DeWitt Weaver and Larry Ziegler are included in the field.

And they bring to the course one particular attribute that galleries at PGA Tour events see all too rarely.

Personality.

“I think golfers on the Senior Tour show their personality more,” said Jimmy Powell, who stands in 16th place on the Senior earnings list (nearly $370,000) - highest of any of the expected participants.

“I’m very familiar with the regular tour, and the relationship between the player and the gallery is a lot closer on the Senior Tour,” Powell said. “Even among the players there’s a closeness. We chat back and forth. It’s serious business, but we have a lot of fun out there. You have a great respect for the other players’ abilities, and there’s still a lot of competitiveness there.”

Powell is not surprised at the popularity of the Senior Tour, which has ballooned from two events and $250,000 in prize money in 1980 to 44 events and nearly $29 million in purses this year. In 1990, Lee Trevino had seven wins and cracked $1 million in annual earnings, allowing him to pocket more than any golfer including players on the regular PGA Tour.

“The (fans) we’re dealing with, many of them grew up with the players on the Senior Tour and they can relate to the names of people they’ve been familiar with for years,” Powell said.

The galleries, though, tend to be “a pretty good cross section” of all ages, Powell said.

Powell has accumulated more money this year than ever, the result, he said, of going back to a grip he used 15 years ago.

Of other entrants, Brue has been playing very well in recent weeks, and Rhyan was leading the Burnet Senior Classic after a first-round 66.

According to promoter Toby Steward, Dent - the longest driver on the Senior Tour - is still a possible participant. Dent said Thursday that he would not be able to play because his mother is ill and in intensive care.

“We understand it, but it’s still disappointing,” said Steward, who has seen the roster of players shift considerably since it was first announced. “When we look at this event, we think that five years down the road, it can be gigantic, but we knew we’d take a few bumps and bruises the first year.

“It’s still going to be a great event and people will still have a great time,” Steward said.

Advance ticket sales had topped 3,000 by Saturday morning.

Golfers are paid appearance fees and are not playing for prize money.

The public is asked not to try to park at the MeadowWood clubhouse. Parking is available off Country Vista Road, near the No. 9 tee.