Golf / Mal Florence : Age Doesn’t Cut Into Jerry Barber’s Game on Super Seniors Tour

Jerry Barber says he is surprised that others are surprised that he’s still winning tournaments at 73.

“After all, I know how to play and I used to be a real good player,” Barber said.

He’s still a good player, having already won two super seniors events this year. The super seniors are players 60 and older and they participate in the regular Senior PGA Tour events in what is a tournament within a tournament.

For example, if the senior tour event is a 54-hole tournament, the super seniors’ competition is based on 36 of those holes.

With victories in the St. Christopher’s and Southwestern Bell tournaments, Barber has earned $22,300. Charlie Sifford, with $23,100, is the only super senior to have earned more money this year. Barber has earned an additional $16,270 on the regular senior tour.

A contemporary of such famous players as Ben Hogan, Sam Snead and Cary Middlecoff of another era, Barber is not slowing down but gearing up.

He played in 32 senior events last season and only six seniors played more rounds. The adage that you’re only as old as you feel would seem to apply to Barber.

“I’ve always taken pretty good care of myself and get plenty of rest,” Barber said. “I’ve also been driving the ball better lately and my iron shots into the green are a little better.

“For a long time I was a good putter but, as you get older, your nerves aren’t as good as they used to be. However, in the last couple of weeks I’ve holed a few putts and there you are.”

Barber, the co-head pro at Griffith Park with his son, Tom, walks two or three miles a day when he’s home, does knee bends and takes 200 to 300 swings with his practice driver.

“I’m very fortunate because my parents lived a long time,” he said. “My dad passed away a year ago at the age of 96. My mother passed away three years ago at the age of 103.

“I have eight brothers and sisters and four of them are in their 80s and four of them are in their 70s and they’re all in reasonably good health.”

Barber, who won the PGA championship in 1961, joined the regular tour in 1948. He recalled that in 1954 he was the fourth-leading money winner with $18,500 in earnings. Last year, he earned $60,000 as a super senior.

That’s a nice living, but not comparable to what some players are earning on the regular tour. For example, Curtis Strange earned more than $1 million in 1988.

Nonetheless, there isn’t a dominant player on the PGA Tour now. Strange has yet to win a tournament this year, and no player has won more than twice.

“One of the problems is, perhaps, that players don’t work on their games as much now,” Barber said. “Snead practiced more than people thought he did. Hogan worked as hard at the game as anyone, if not more.

“When Hogan won the U.S. Open in the early ‘50s, someone asked him if it was hard. Hogan said, ‘That wasn’t hard. It was the four hours of practice a day since last September that was tough.’

“You can’t find a guy today who practices four hours a day. The players are making so much money now without winning that they don’t have to do what Hogan did.”

Barber also noted another aspect relevant to the inflated purses on the tour.

“We used to give caddies $75 to $100,” he said. “Now if you give them less than $300, or $400, they hand it back to you. But it’s not a problem. The caddies have a lot of expenses traveling around.”

Golf magazines devote most of their space to instructional devices, and there are many books on the market on how to play the game.

Barber says such information generally is misleading.

“I don’t know any game that has poorer instruction than golf,” he said. “It needs to be taught better and simpler. Golf is not that complicated.

“You have a ball and a club and you’re trying to hit the ball with the club and they (magazines and books) have devoted all their attention to the movements of the body and the movements are, more or less, a reflex action.

“If you’re always thinking of your left arm, shoulder, or hip, you have a problem. You should concentrate on holding onto the club without getting your feet too close together, or too close to the ball. Just use your hands, forearms and wrist and you ought to hit the ball pretty good.”

Barber is still doing it at 73. That should be a lesson in itself.

For those who pound balls on ranges at all hours of the day, all is not lost.

Lee Trevino says that practice is more likely to produce a better golf game than playing a course.

“If you’re on the course and you hit a bad five-iron, you just hit it and forget it and go on to the next shot,” Trevino said. “But if you’re practicing and you hit a bad five-iron, you can work on that five-iron shot until you figure out what you’re doing wrong and get it right.”

However, Trevino makes an exception with his driver.

“I never hit the driver on the practice tee,” he said. “It’s too wide open. It doesn’t mean anything. There’s no trouble out there on the range, no trees, no out of bounds, no nothing.

“I only hit the driver on the course. Get out there by yourself and hit a bunch of drives off every tee. That gives you an idea of what you’re doing.”

Mark Calcavecchia and Ken Green have well-earned nicknames on the PGA pro tour.

“We call them the Fearless Flies,” said Robert Wrenn of the aggressive duo. “They’re not afraid to stand up there on the tee and let it fly.”

For identification purposes Calcavecchia is Fly I and Green is Fly II.

Golf Notes

The Long Beach City amateur championship is scheduled July 1-3 at Recreation Park, Skylinks and El Dorado golf courses. . . . A Pro-am tournament July 19 will proceed the Long Beach Open professional tournament, July 20-23, at El Dorado and Recreational Park courses. The tournament has a guaranteed purse of $100,000. Twenty amateurs will play in the open tournament, drawing from high schools, Long Beach City College, Cal State Long Beach and the top six finishers in the city championship. The Southern California PGA’s 10th annual West Coast Golf Show will be held Aug. 19-21 at the Long Beach Convention Center.

The recently opened Santa Fe Farms Golf Club in Rancho Santa Fe has been given an official rating by the Southern California Golf Assn. The Farms championship tees rated 74.5 with a 71.6 and 69.4 rating for the blue and white tees, respectively. . . . The Oroweat Foods Co./Southern California PGA section championship will be held July 14-16 at SeaCliff Country Club in Huntington Beach.