GOLF SENIOR TOURNAMENT PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP : They Came to Make This Event a Success

If any of the big four of the Senior PGA Tour--Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino or Gary Player--shows up for a tournament, the event usually is a success.

All four are at Dearborn Country Club, so the $1-million Mazda Tournament Players Championship, which gets under way today, must be considered important.

One of the few 72-hole tournaments on the 50-and-over tour, it is only the third senior event for Nicklaus, who turned 50 in January. His goal for this season is to win a tournament on each of the regular and senior tours. He is halfway there, having won the Traditions, his first as a senior.

“The momentum at the Traditions carried over to the Masters and I had a chance to win there,” Nicklaus said. “I am confident I can still win on the regular tour. I’m playing here at least partly because I need to play to get ready for the U.S. Open. The narrow fairways and fast greens should help.”

The Open is next week at Medinah outside Chicago. Until he arrived Monday, Nicklaus had not touched a golf club for 10 days. After visiting five courses he is building in five countries in Europe, he spent four days fishing in the Bahamas.

“I try to use my boat, Sea Bear, for a few days fishing each year,” he said. “With four days, I’m already one day ahead of all last year. But now, it’s time to play golf again. I want to win here. I have a slight hip problem going back to the last day at Augusta, but it’s better.”

In the senior event he didn’t win, the PGA, Nicklaus finished third. In his absence, Trevino has been the dominant force. He has entered 11 tournaments and won five of them. Last week he was first at Scarborough, N.Y., winning a playoff on the fifth extra hole, after a four-way tie. He is playing extremely well despite a leg injury.

“I had what Dr. (Frank) Jobe said was either a cyst or a tumor,” Trevino said. “It was a little scary, wondering if it was malignant. It is not malignant, and I may not have to have it removed until the season is over. The cyst, or whatever it is, is just below the kneecap.

“The only time it hurts is when I get tired. I was really tired in that playoff last Sunday. When it hurts, I can’t sleep. I don’t take any medication, not even an aspirin. The doctor will look at it tomorrow, but I think I’ll be fine.”

Palmer, who has not played well since winning the senior skins in Hawaii in late January, is in shape, but he’s the old man of the quartet.

“I just had my physical and I’m fit,” Palmer said. “I haven’t played well, but I feel it’s time for a change. I don’t think my age (60) will prevent me from winning again. I just need to find the putting stroke I had in Hawaii.”

Player, who won the PGA, left the tour after that tournament to go home to South Africa and to oversee some of the courses he has been building around the world. He has played well since he returned three weeks ago. He had two seconds and was fifth last week. He bogeyed the last hole or it would have been a five-way playoff.

All four praised the condition of the course created by Henry Ford and designed by golf architect Donald Ross in 1923. It was redesigned in 1966-67.

It is, Trevino admitted, his kind of course.

“I never enjoyed playing the stadium courses and I never played well on them,” he said. “They call for high irons. They have taken the bump and run out of golf. We are over 50 and these traditional courses are what we grew up on. I love it.”