GOLF: Senior Golf

▪ 1996

      One of sports' biggest recent success stories was the Professional Golfers' Association's (PGA's) Senior Tour. Beginning in 1980 with two tournaments and $250,000 in prize money, this competition for golfers over 50 years old had grown into a $33.3 million tour with 38 official stops in 1995. A record six seniors earned more than $1 million in 1994, and players on the regular PGA tour began to look forward to turning 50.

      The foundation for the Senior Tour was laid in 1978 at the first Legends of Golf tournament. In January 1980 a meeting between PGA Commissioner Deane Beman and six of the tour's all-time leading money winners, all over 50 (Julius Boros, Gardner Dickinson, Don January, Bob Goalby, Dan Sikes, and Sam Snead), led to the official start of the Senior Tour. Vital to the tour's early survival was its professional-amateur (pro-am) component, which allowed fans to play a round with the pros for a fee. Initially, one of those rounds was part of the competition, but by 1987 the tour had established a standard format: a two-day pro-am followed by a three-day 54-hole competition.

      As the year 2000 approached, the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population was 45-54 years old. Many in this age group and above not only were fans of the senior players and could afford pro-am fees but also were in positions of power with potential corporate sponsors. Moreover, many who followed the senior game were part of the affluent target group that sponsors sought to reach. (Cadillac attributed $90 million in sales to tour sponsorship in one three-year period.)

      Yet the tour's appeal was more than just nostalgic. Unlike "old-timers" baseball, senior golf was not a half-speed imitation of a game once played but the game itself (albeit with favourable tee and pin placements). Equipment innovations helped seniors to maintain the distance and accuracy of their games; however, their play had more in common with the golf played by the average fan than did the mechanical precision of the regular tour. Seniors had quirkier personalities than the businesslike "flat bellies" (Lee Trevino's name for regular tour players). They seemed to like each other and love what they were doing, and they knew how to play to the crowd. Each year the ranks of longtime favourites grew, and the participation of the PGA's Big Four (Trevino, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Gary Player) lent a special magic.

      Although career victories and position on the all-time money-winning list were the criteria for eligibility, eight players could also join the tour each year by way of a qualifying tournament. As a result, some of golf's biggest names, such as the 1995 senior championship winner Raymond Floyd, competed with late bloomers such as Jim Albus, winner of only $3,750 on the regular tour but more than $3 million as a senior. As the first generation of seniors contemplated retirement, fans looked forward to the approaching 50th birthdays of the likes of Johnny Miller and Tom Watson.

      (JEFF WALLENFELDT)

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