The Classic’s backbone

Deepa Bharath

Jo Pat Williams Sr. wears only four Toshiba tournament pins on his

red baseball cap.

There’s obviously no room for nine.

Williams has volunteered at the Toshiba Senior Classic golf

tournament since it started at the Mesa Verde Golf Club, he said.

“I always worked hole No. 2,” Williams said. “It’s a busy, busy

place.”

The 67-year-old Huntington Beach man is one of about 950

volunteers who form the lifeline of the tournament. They man ticket

counters and lost-and-found booths, check credentials, chauffeur

players around and even do some crowd control when things get excited

out in the green.

“You can’t do a golf tournament without volunteers, be it Seniors,

PGA or LPGA,” Tournament Director Jeff Purser said. “A tournament

without volunteers is logistically and financially impossible.”

Who are these volunteers?

“They’re seniors, teenagers, boy scouts, presidents of companies,

nurses, teachers, you name it,” Purser said.

The tournament doesn’t have a problem assembling volunteers every

year, he said. They come through the 50 tournament committees,

solicitations in local media and through the Web site, Purser said.

Monday was Newport Beach resident Richard Macklin’s first day on

the job at the ticket counters.

“I sold three tickets in two hours,” he remarked with a laugh.

“But it’s all only starting and, hopefully, it’ll get busier.”

Macklin said to him it was all about taking in the fresh air and

breathtaking views of colorful canopies and rolling greens.

“It’s being outdoors, the green greens, the open space,” he raved.

“Whether I’m playing the game or driving a golf cart, it’s really a

lot of fun.”

But this year, it was a pretty simple decision for Macklin, a real

estate developer, to volunteer about four to five hours a day for the

whole week.

“It was either this or a day in the office doing a whole lot of

accounting and taxes,” he said. “Really, it was a pretty simple

choice.”

But volunteering is more than a break from work for people like

Williams, who’ve had an ongoing relationship with the tournament.

Williams says he prefers the senior tour because the players “are

more friendly than the pros.”

“I love Chi Chi Rodriguez,” he said. “There was this one time when

I was on the eighth hole when Chi Chi came driving a golf cart

singing some Puerto Rican song. Then he got off the cart, did a

30-foot put and the sword dance. He was so cool about it, you

wouldn’t think he had a care in the world or played golf for a

living.”

It’s moments like that that longtime volunteers live for, Williams

said.

“Why did I start volunteering?” he asked. “Because it’s the only

giving back to golf I do.”