Floyd Gets Even Better With Age

By any definition, Raymond Floyd has had an enormously successful career on the PGA Tour. In 32 years he has won 22 tournaments, including three of the four Grand Slam events, and earned more than $5 million.

As amazing as that is, consider this: In barely three full years on the Senior PGA Tour, Floyd has won 12 of the 62 tournaments in which he has played.

Even more amazing, Floyd’s career earnings on the Senior Tour this year will likely surpass his career earnings on the PGA Tour. In 80 Senior events, he will have won more money than he won in 691 tour events.

“It’s been a smashing success,” Floyd said about the Senior Tour. “If the top players continue to embrace it it will stay successful, and I think they will.”

Floyd has won $5.1 million on the PGA Tour since 1963. He has won nearly $4 million on the Senior Tour since joining in September of 1992, taking about $1.4 million each of the last two years.

Floyd has also banked a nice sum from unofficial events and will get a chance to add even more next week when he plays against Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Jim Colbert in the Senior Skins Game at the Mauna Lani Resort in Hawaii.

Floyd has won the last two Senior Skins Games and has earned $720,000 in three of the competitions. A total of $540,000 is at stake this year.

Floyd gets his season going this week at the Senior Tournament of Champions in Puerto Rico.

“My goal is to win,” Floyd said in a telephone interview. “Only playing 20 or 21 events it’s not realistic that I can be the leading money winner on the tour. But I’m confident with my goal being to win and play competitive golf.”

Money, money, money

Corey Pavin won more money on a golf course worldwide last year than anyone else. The U.S. Open champion earned $2.7 million, becoming the first American to lead the list compiled by International Management Group since Raymond Floyd in 1982.

Pavin, who won $1.3 million on the PGA Tour, also won the Volvo Asian Masters in Taiwan and the Million Dollar Challenge in South Africa.

Floyd won the most worldwide among seniors with $1.8 million and Annika Sorenstam led the women with $1.04 million.

The figures represent prize money from tournaments with a minimum of 36 holes and four players, and does not include such competitions as skins games and pro-ams.

To show how prize money has grown, Tom Watson’s worldwideleading $506,912 in 1979 would have finished 91st this year.

Three players joined Pavin in winning more than $2 million in 1995 - Jumbo Ozaki, Colin Montgomerie and Greg Norman.

Young woman with a dream

The first LPGA full-field event is the HealthSouth Inaugural Friday through Sunday at Walt Disney World’s Bonnet Creek Golf Club in Orlando, Fla. And one participant is a teenager who not too long ago would have been wandering around wide-eyed looking for Mickey and Minnie.

Cristie Kerr, an 18-year-old amateur from Miami, earned one of the two qualifying spots in the HealthSouth. The winner of last year’s Western Women’s Amateur and the Florida Women’s Open will have her father carrying her bag. Kerr won’t be an amateur for long. She plans on turning pro in July after the Curtis Cup.

Big business

As much as prize money has grown, the amount spent on golf equipment and clothing has grown even more. That will be evident at the 43rd annual PGA Merchandise Show Jan. 26-29 in Orlando, Fla.

More than 1,000 exhibitors will utilize 750,000 square feet in the Orange County Convention Center. Last year the show attracted 794 exhibitors and 35,610 guests from more than 50 countries.

One of the fastest growing segments of the golf industry is clothing. Not long ago, no one wanted to look like a golfer, bedecked in bright colors and mind-boggling checks. Not so now.

There will be 100 golf apparel companies in Orlando. Among those making their debut at the show are Dockers, Tommy Hilfiger, Liz Claiborne and Rockport.

There has been a 72 percent increase in exhibitors at the show in the past five years.

Chip shots

The University of Houston has the most players on the PGA Tour this year with 13. Florida and Wake Forest are second with 12 each.

Youngest rookie on the PGA Tour this year is Ron Whittaker, a nephew of Lanny Wadkins. Whittaker will be 25 in August.

The oldest is Allen Doyle, who will be 48 in June. Doyle is the oldest rookie in tour history. He shot a final-round 70 last week at the Nortel Open to tie for 49th and earned $3,029.