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Golf column, Is the community ready for the Diners Club Matches?

Barbados was only slightly behind the times when Gary Pollard

worked on a golf tournament there created for television.

There were no newspapers or TV stations. It took two months sometimes

for mail to arrive. Few could afford to live on the remote island in the

West Indies.

But Pollard, a real estate developer and builder for 27 years,

transformed the travel paradise into a successful location for the

relaunch of Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf, produced by Jack Nicklaus

Productions.

On Barbados, equipment flown in from Miami had to be perfectly

measured and weighed to fit the cargo plane, and getting cooperation from

the Barbadian government at times was tough.

By the time Nick Faldo and Tom Lehman played in Shell’s Wonderful

World of Golf at Royal West Moreland Golf Club on Barbados, the sponsors

didn’t lift a finger and Nicklaus Productions got its combination of

golf, history and travel, resulting in economic growth for Barbados.

After the English family that owned the island “annoyed” Pollard, he

moved to Aruba, and, eventually, directed another version of Shell’s

Wonderful World of Golf last year. Aruba was “Americanized” and Pollard,

in about three months, pulled off another show on the Robert Trent Jones,

Jr.-designed Pierra del Sol Golf Club featuring Nick Price and the late

Payne Stewart.

But, now, in affluent Newport Beach, with anything and everything at

Pollard’s fingertips, it isn’t as easy.

The Diners Club Matches has Jack Nicklaus playing competitive golf for

the first time in Newport; Pelican Hill Golf Club is hosting its first

major tournament; and ABC Sports will televise the team match-play event

Saturday and Sunday live from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

There’s $1.2 million at stake, and, yes, it’s live network television

from Newport Coast ... nothing really silly about that.

“I think (the Diners Club Matches are) harder (to operate), because

instead of dealing with two players, you’re dealing with 24,” Michael

Pithey, vice president and general manager of the production company,

said Wednesday.

Still, Newport hasn’t been as anxious to embrace the event as Pollard

thought, yet the Diners Club Matches tournament director is hopeful that

walk-up ticket sales over the weekend will be strong in the fashionably

late Newport market.

Further, a little rain will help clear the skies before ABC’s on-air

launching Saturday, so look on the bright side.

Laura Davies has already replaced Nancy Lopez in the LPGA field, but

with two dozen pros from the PGA, Senior PGA and LPGA tours, there are

plenty of stars everywhere.

And, though tournament officials might only get half of their initial

estimate of 10,000 fans entering the turnstiles this weekend at Pelican

Hill, the event will improve every year as long as The Irvine Company is

patient and continues its community focus.

You know folks are serious about this event when the Newport Beach

Conference & Visitors Bureau buys network air time on ABC for the Diners

Club Matches.

Transportation, Pollard said, is the biggest expense in operating the

Diners Club Matches.

Rob Ford, Pelican Hill Director of Golf who has been there since the

opening of the Ocean South course in November 1991, isn’t far off when he

said (holes 15 through 18 on Ocean South) “are the four greatest

finishing holes in Southern California.”

After the Diners Club Matches, Pelican Hill won’t need to be labeled

“Pebble Beach of the South.” It can have its own identity and stand on

its own, forming a legacy in the 21st century, instead.

The inaugural Holiday Invitational Pro-Am, Dec. 23 at Newport Beach

Golf Course to benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, is sold out,

tournament director Keith Wyrick said.

The family-themed event will feature actors David Nelson and Mike

Villani, former Newport Beach mayor Tom Edwards and golf courses owners

Chris Jones and Steve Lane.

Each foursome will contain a family of two (any combination of

mother/daughter, father/son, mother/son or father/daughter), while, under

an experimental auspices, pros like John Sullivan, Tony Forrester and

John Hartman will play for a senior purse of $2,000. There will be one

senior pro in each of the 15 foursomes.

Doug Ives, owner and operator of the Golden State Tour, will be part

of the tournament, which features a prime rib luncheon after golf and a

morning clinic prior to shotgun start at 9 a.m. The format will use the

two best balls in each group.

Wyrick’s goal is to launch an Orange County Senior Invitational.

Richard Dunn’s golf column appears every Thursday.

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