Big Names Commit to Play Toshiba Senior Event

The million dollar purse for next week’s Toshiba Senior Classic is proving to be a strong lure to Senior PGA Tour players. Tournament organizers say they have received commitments from 18 of the top 20 money winners from last year.

Hale Irwin, the 1995 rookie of the year on the senior tour, signed up last week, and Gary Player told organizers Friday he had changed his plans and would be playing in the Newport Beach event.

“It was a big surprise to us,” said tournament director Michael Carey, “because we thought he had commitments in Asia.”

Carey said he believes the field is shaping up to be the strongest on the tour so far this year. It helps, no doubt, that the event offers the first million-dollar purse of the season.

Even so, everyone won’t be here. Ray Floyd, second on the money list last year, and No. 8 Graham Marsh are holdouts. Floyd, who lives in Florida, rarely makes the California swing.

Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer, have said they won’t play the Toshiba. Palmer hosts his PGA tournament, the Bay Hill Invitational, the same week and Nicklaus has made a commitment to play in it, according to Bob Neely, president of International Sports & Event Marketing, the organizing company.

However, with Tuesday the deadline for commitment, Carey said he is still making his best pitches. “We do everything we can to get anybody here,” he said. “We haven’t given up hope on either Nicklaus or Floyd.”

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Tournament week at the Newport Beach Country Club starts a week from today with a celebrity pro-am. There will be a shootout and clinic Tuesday and the main pro-am is Wednesday and Thursday. The tournament runs Friday through Sunday.

Season badges are $75. Daily tickets range from $5 to $25, $25 on the weekend.

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The tournament has also donated two golf scholarships to the UC Irvine and Orange Coast golf programs.

The scholarships have been given in memory of Melvin E. Neely.

At UC Irvine, the scholarship will be for a member of the team and at OCC it will help a golfer move on to a four-year college.

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Most local golf publications lack substance. Usually, you’ll find plenty of golf shop advertisements and rehashed press releases, but little in the way of original reporting.

Into the void has stepped Orange County Golf magazine, a good looking and informative publication that is planning to release its first anniversary issue this week.

Orange County Golf offers insightful columns, well-written features and thorough coverage of local golf news. The free magazine, a four-color publication with a circulation of 15,000, is available at most area golf courses.

Co-owner/publishers Rob Lyon and Eric Marson grew up together in the same Buena Park neighborhood and studied journalism together at Fullerton College. They run the magazine out of an extra bedroom in Marson’s Brea home.

Lyon said they hope to use the county as a stepping stone to creating a publication that serves greater Southern California. “Southern California is a very huge golf market,” he said. “We saw that and started small, but we hope to grow and eventually serve the whole area.”

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Chris Tidland had an inauspicious start on the Nike Tour. Tidland, an All-American from Oklahoma State and 1989 Southern Section individual champion at Valencia High School, was disqualified from the San Jose Open, when he signed an incorrect scorecard after the first round last month.

Tidland shot 73, but signed for a 72. He said he made the mistake because he was unfamiliar with the course and misjudged par on one hole.

His second try, the Inland Empire Open at Moreno Valley Ranch, went much better. Sunday, Tidland shot 69 to finish nine under and seven shots behind Jim Estes, who shot 68 four days in a row to win.

Tidland received $3,260.

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Coto de Caza’s Kellee Booth has been named to the 1996 Curtis Cup team, which will face a team from Great Britain and Ireland in June in Killarney, Ireland, trying to win back the cup the United States lost in 1992. The 1994 match ended in a tie.

Booth, a sophomore at defending NCAA champion Arizona State, will be a second-generation Curtis Cup player. Her mother, Jane Bastanchury Booth, played for the U.S. team in 1970, ’72 and ’74.

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Big show: The Southern California PGA’s Golf Expo runs this Friday through Sunday at the Anaheim Convention Center and will offer golfers a chance to try out the latest equipment.

PGA professionals also will be available for free individual instruction and personalized club fitting. There will demonstrations of new training devices and putting and long-drive contests. Admission is $7 for adults, $4 for seniors (55 and older) and juniors (11 to 17). Children under 11 are free. For more information, call (714) 999-8900.

Golf Notes

Fullerton’s East Coyote Hills public golf course has pushed back its expected opening from March until May. . . . Derek Hardy, a PGA professional at Pelican Hill Golf Club, was named one of the nation’s best 100 teachers in Golf magazine’s January issue. In 1991, the magazine gave Hardy a similar honor.

The Orange County Golf Notebook runs monthly. Readers are encouraged to suggest items. Call (714) 966-5904, fax (714) 966-5663 or e-mail Martin.Beck@latimes.com