Golf: Dark clouds hover at Toshiba Classic

Richard Dunn

NEWPORT BEACH - The seventh annual Toshiba Senior Classic picked up

where it left off last year.

There was more rain and another cancellation, though this time it

wasn’t the final round.

Monday’s inclement weather canceled the first day of practice rounds

for members of the Senior PGA Tour, many of whom arrived via plane

charter Sunday night from Mexico, where the inaugural Mexico Senior

Classic was played at Las Vista in Puebla, Mexico.

About a third of the field showed up at Newport Beach Country Club to

check in their bags, but the players were limited with what they could

do. Caddies could walk the golf course to mark off yardage, but anyone

playing was turned away by Senior Tour official Skip Whittet.

Whittet and Newport Beach Country Club superintendent Ron Benedict

both said the golf course was unplayable. They also agreed that if Monday

was a regular round in the tournament it would’ve been canceled.

“Right now, it’s not playable, but we’ll do everything we can to make

it playable,” Benedict said. “The course drains well, but the greens

don’t.”

Most of the greens at Newport Beach have been intact since 1954, when

the course opened, unlike Riviera, which has newer, rebuilt greens and is

able to withstand more water. Last weekend’s Nissan Open, for instance,

was played in the rain because the Riviera conditions allowed it.

But at Newport Beach that’s not the case.

“We had six inches of water in the fairways,” Whittet said. “Some of

the newer greens here, like 18, drain really well, but the others are old

base.”

More rain is forecasted this week.

“Sure, you can play in the rain, but the only time you don’t is when

the course is unplayable,” Newport Beach Country Club head professional

Paul Hahn said.

There was near tragedy Sunday when the main scoreboard collapsed

between the ninth green and practice putting green.

The green, wooden scoreboard, which lists all 78 players in the

Toshiba Classic field, crashed to the ground about 3:30 p.m. Sunday, just

one day after the club closed the golf course to its members.

Hahn said that Toshiba Classic operations manager Marc Sorgatz heard

the scoreboard crash from the service yard several hundred yards away.

“If anybody would have been walking under it at that time, they would

have been killed,” Hahn said.

When club staffers in the pro shop noticed the scoreboard leaning

Sunday, they quickly informed tournament officials, who went to the

service yard to find a way to secure it.

Tom McGinnis of Orlando, Fla., shot 67 in the Monday Qualifier at

Strawberry Farms Golf Club to earn medalist honors and making his way

into the Toshiba Senior Classic.

Players were vying for four open qualifying spots.

Kikuo Arai of Rancho Palos Verdes and Paul Parajeckas of Woburn,

Mass., both shot 68 and also qualified.

A three-man playoff today at 8 a.m. at Strawberry Farms will determine

the fourth open qualifying spot. The playoff will include Ray Carrasco of

Irvine, Ted Goin of Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., and Gary Vanier of Pleasant

Hills, Calif.

Leonard Thompson, Jim Colbert, Steve Veriato, Dana Quigley, Bruce

Fleisher, Terry Dill, Walter Morgan, Bruce Summerhays, Tom Shaw, Tom

Wargo, Hubert Green and Andy North were among the Senior Tour pros at the

course Monday.

North, John Schroeder, Jim Ahern and 1999 Toshiba Classic champion

Gary McCord were given sponsor exemptions Monday.

McCord finished 33rd on the Senior Tour money list last year, two

slots short of earning a full exempt status for 2001.

“(McCord) did pretty well here the last time he was a sponsor

exemption,” Toshiba Classic publicist Chris Premer said.