GOLF : Event That Started the Senior Tour Now at La Quinta

For many years after a player was no longer competitive on the PGA Tour, all he could hope for was that his name would get him a lucrative job with a well-known country club.

Only a few were chosen, and many good professional golfers practically disappeared. Some fell on hard times.

But a man who revered the great golfers of yesteryear, Fred Raphael, came up with an idea that turned out to be the kickoff event for the Senior PGA Tour.

He called it the Legends of Golf, and he gathered a bunch of retired, famous older golfers and staged the event at Onion Hollow at San Antonio in 1978. Within a couple of years, with the help of national television, people learned that Sam Snead, Julius Boros, Jimmy Demaret and others could still play golf and play it well.

It was only a short jump to the senior tour. By 1985, there were 27 events for the 50-and-older set. It was only the beginning. Last year, six seniors earned $1 million, and this year there are 44 tournaments and purses of $33 million.

Liberty Mutual, sponsor of the Legends, moved the event from San Antonio to PGA West at La Quinta this year. The better-ball event begins Friday and has brought out most of the grand old names of golf.

There is competition in three divisions. The Legends is for the current stars of the senior tour, including Lee Trevino, Dave Stockton, Charles Coody, Dale Douglass, Arnold Palmer and Tom Wargo.

The Legendary group consists of players in the super senior division (60 and older), and then there is the Demaret group (70 and over), headed by Snead.

This is the only event Snead, nearing 83, competes in, and it’s his first appearance in the West in many years. Despite age and the infirmities that go with it, Snead can still hit the ball a good distance. The Demaret group will play only on Saturday.

The senior tour really took off during the final round of the 1979 Legends, when Julius Boros and Roberto DeVicenzo battled Art Wall and Tommy Bolt for six extra holes, as all four players made a series of spectacular long putts.

When Snead, Boros, Don January and others met in 1980, they decided to stage a couple of events a year so they could get together and talk over old times, including some wealthy amateurs for a pro-am. From two tournaments, the tour just kept growing.

Many considered the Senior PGA Tour the most successful pro sports venture of the 1980s. Now, new players become eligible for the Legends just about every year. Joining the field this week are former PGA Commissioner Deane Beman and British star Tony Jacklin. Next year, Hale Irwin, who will be 50 on June 3, will become eligible.