Charities are real winners

Rick Devereux

Monday is usually the day off for professional golfers. They regroup

from the most recent tournament and travel to the next destination.

But several Senior PGA members participated in the Toshiba Senior

Classic Monday Pro-Am at Newport Beach Country Club.

“[Monday] is when the tournament raises money for charities,” said

Joe Inman, a three-time champion on the ChampionsTour. “These

tournaments need players to be good stewards for the game.”

No other Champions Tour event raises as much money as the Toshiba

Senior Classic. It has raised more than $5.7 million for more than 20

different charities in the past six years and became the first

tournament to raise $1 million for charity in four consecutive years

from 2000-2003.

The primary beneficiary of the tournament is Hoag Memorial

Hospital Presbyterian, but the tournament also sponsors the Toshiba

Senior Classic Scholarship Fund, which has awarded 38 Toshiba

computers and $89,000 in grants to local high school seniors.

But the Monday Pro-Am paired 19 professionals with 76 amateurs in

a best-ball format.

“Monday is a little more casual,” tournament co-chairman Jake

Rohrer said. “There’s less stress.”

Powerful Santa Ana winds created some havoc for the golfers and

made the greens faster than expected. But the players still seemed to

enjoy themselves.

“I played awful, but I was a great scorekeeper,” professional R.W.

Eaks said. “These guys carried me on their backs.”

It was an opportunity for the amateurs to play a round of golf

with some of the best in the world.

“We played with [three-time tournament winner] Rocky Thompson,”

Tom Minasian said. “He was telling us stories about being on the tour

and growing up in Texas. It was a blast.”

Minasian, a sales rep from East Bluff, has participated in the

pro-am three times and said the greens were the fastest he has seen.

But the professionals admired the tournament as a whole.

“This is really the best-run event on the tour,” Eaks said. “It is

a great golf course and there is always great weather.”

Mark Lye, a professional for 30 years, agreed that the Toshiba

tournament is the highlight of the year for him.

“It is one of the best events on the tour,” Lye said. “It is

always well-attended and it is efficiently run.”

Lye and Inman said the Toshiba is put together like a top-notch

PGA event, making the decision to come to the Newport Beach Country

Club a no-brainer.

Inman said the side-by-side fairways on the 11th and 12th holes,

as well as the 10th and 18th, create a more intimate feel.

“You’ve got to pay attention on those holes because balls can be

coming in from all over the place and you can get hit, especially in

a pro-am,” he said.

“Nobody died today, which is good.”

Rohrer appreciated the sacrifices the professionals made to play

in the pro-am, including the threat of being struck by a wayward

drive.

“The professionals are great,” he said. “Mondays are their days

off and here they are playing with amateurs.”

Inman said the experience of players on the Champions Tour allows

them to have more insight on life than PGA players are able to pass

on to pro-am partners.

“[The Champions Tour] cares a lot about the pro-am,” he said.

“[The PGA] players are focused on themselves and trying to win all

the time, while [senior] players have been around a little longer and

have a different perspective about giving back to the community.”