Golf : At Last, Tour Champions to Fire the First Shot

The Tournament of Champions, one of golf’s most prestigious events since it began in 1953, is finally where it always should have been--at the start of the PGA Tour.

Only winners for the previous 12 months are eligible. Before this year, the tournament had been played in mid-year, splitting winners from one year and another.

Wednesday, on the tough La Costa course in Carlsbad, 31 champions from the 1985 PGA Tour will tee off in the opening event of 1986 season. A record $500,000 will be at stake.

“This is the way it should be,” said Lanny Wadkins, PGA Player of the Year. “It’s a great reward for the players who won in the previous year, and the tournament should take on a lot more meaning. It will also get more of the top players out here for the rest of the West Coast swing.”

Curiously, the first opening Tournament of Champions has a strange mix of players. There is no Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Lee Trevino or Craig Stadler, but there is an amateur, Scott Verplank.

Verplank, a senior at Oklahoma State, will become the first amateur to play in the 34-year history of the Tournament of Champions. Gene Littler won the 1954 San Diego Open as an amateur but played in the T of C that same year as a professional. He tied for seventh place at Las Vegas and won $1,000. Doug Sanders won the 1956 Canadian Open as an amateur, but at that time it was not an official PGA event, so he did not qualify for the T of C.

Verplank, who beat Jim Thorpe in a playoff to win the 1985 Western Open, is not turning professional until the summer because he wants to get his degree and play for the Cowboy golf team in the NCAA tournament.

This will be the first year since 1962 that neither Nicklaus nor Watson qualified.

Nine of the 31 qualifiers are first-time performers: British Open champion Sandy Lyle of Scotland, Mark Wiebe of nearby Escondido, Phil Blackmar, Ken Green, Tim Simpson, Bill Glasson, Dan Forsman, Thorpe and Verplank.

The Vardon Trophy winner for 1985’s best scoring average, Don Pooley, and the longest hitter, Andy Bean, will not be at La Costa. Neither won a tournament.

Defending champion is Tom Kite, who surprisingly was the year’s only wire-to-wire winner when he opened with a course-record 64 and finished six shots ahead of Mark McCumber.

Despite the absence of Nicklaus and Watson, the familiar names include Wadkins, Golf Writers Assn. Player of the Year Curtis Strange, Hal Sutton, Mark O’Meara, Calvin Peete, Hale Irwin and the three other winners of major tournaments--Andy North, U. S. Open; Hubert Green, PGA, and Bernhard Langer of West Germany, Masters.

One 1985 winner not eligible is Spain’s Seve Ballesteros, who qualified by winning the USF&G; tournament in New Orleans last March but later was suspended for 1986 by PGA Commissioner Deane Beman because of “failure to honor his commitment to play in 15 tour events in 1984.”

There will also be a $100,000 Seniors Tournament of Champions played at the same time at La Costa. Peter Thomson of Australia, who won nine senior events last year, is defending champion against a field that includes Arnold Palmer, Don January, Lee Elder and Miller Barber.

Gary Player, who won the Quadel Senior tournament as a 50-year-old rookie, is not playing.

Golf Notes

Oakmont CC members, who have long considered their course one of the toughest in the area, got a lift from the Ladies PGA when statistics showed that the Glendale course was the most difficult the women pros played last year. Of the 100 toughest holes on the tour, eight of them were at Oakmont. No other course had more than six of the 100. And Oakmont’s 12th hole, a 410-yard par 4, was the single most difficult on the tour, playing to a .624 shot over-par average. The fifth toughest anywhere was Oakmont’s No. 6, a 395-yard par 4. The LPGA will get another shot at Oakmont in the GNA-Glendale Federal Tournament March 13-16.

The new PGA West stadium course in La Quinta was officially opened Saturday with course architect Pete Dye, PGA of America president Mickey Powell and tour commissioner Deane Beman on hand to hit the first balls. Construction is also underway on 12 holes of the Arnold Palmer-designed course in the PGA West complex. It is expected to open in October. Already the stadium course has been designated for use in this year’s PGA qualifying school, the 1991 Ryder Cup matches and probably this year’s Skins Game. . . . Newell Morris has succeeded Marty Tregnan as president of Griffith Park men’s club. Tregnan held the reins for 10 years. . . . The USGA granted 392 amateur reinstatements last year, including ones for Hall of Fame pitcher Warren Spahn and San Diego Charger quarterback Dan Fouts.

Southern Californians had a hard time in the recent PGA qualifying school with only tiny Mike Miles (5-7, 137 pounds) of Cypress earning his playing card. Miles played at Cal State Long Beach. . . . The SoCal section led the nation in raising money for the PGA’s National Golf Day charities, collecting $32,838, the highest since the charity event was started in 1952. George Thomsen, head professional at Candlewood CC, accepted the Herb Graffis Award for taking the No. 1 position. Thomsen’s club accounted for nearly one-fourth of the SoCal total after Thomsen and assistant Greg Graham played a 172-hole marathon on June 17 in which 230 Candelwood members coughed up $7,130 to lead the section for the second year in a row.

Ten SoCal golf shops were listed among America’s 100 best by Golf Shop Operations, an industry publication. The shops, listed in five categories: Off-course--Roger Dunn Shops, Santa Ana; Walter Keller Shop, Los Angeles. Municipal--Brookside Municipal, Pasadena; Santa Barbara Community GC. Private--Annandale GC, Pasadena; El Caballero CC, Tarzana. Privately-owned, daily fee--Sandpiper GC, Goleta. Resort--La Costa Hotel CC, Carlsbad; Rancho Las Palmas CC, Rancho Mirage; and Singing Hills CC, El Cajon. . . . Jess W. Sweetser, who won the NCAA championship in 1920 for Yale, the 1922 U.S. Amateur and 1926 British Amateur and a veteran of six Walker Cup teams, is the 1985 recipient of the USGA’s Bob Jones Award for “distinguished sportsmanship in golf.” . . . The 17th annual S.O.S. Invitational is Monday at the Indian Hills CC and Jurupa Hills CC courses in Riverside with proceeds going to the Riverside City College athletic program. . . . Steve Garvey plays host to one of his Michelob celebrity tournaments Monday at Fairbanks Ranch CC in Rancho Santa Fe to raise funds for the PACE Center for Career Development and the San Diego chapter for multiple sclerosis. His other one will be Monday Feb. 10 at Braemar CC in Tarzana for the Oral Education Center.

Griffith Park pro Jerry Barber will team with 1957 L.A. Open winner Doug Ford in the Legends of Golf tournament in Austin, Tex. in April. The Legends, which was started by Jackie Burke and the late Jimmy Demaret in 1978, has been credited with the proliferation of senior golf tournaments. Gene Sarazen, 84, will be the oldest competitor. He is paired with Paul Runyan, former Annandale and La Jolla pro. Another former L.A. Open winner, Charlie Sifford, will play with Jim Ferree. . . . Left-hander Dorothy Fenmore won the President’s Cup at Hillcrest CC. . . . Former tour winner Al Johnston is director of golf at Desert Horizons CC. Johnston is also the summer pro at Grossinger’s Hotel CC in New York. . . . Wilfred Montague of Victoria is president of the SoCal Public Links Golf Assn. Other officers: Hal Rainey, La Mirada, and Chuck Jorgensen, Marshall Canyon, vice presidents; Fred Berglund, Los Amigos, treasurer; and Jon Wade, Mountain View, secretary.