Despite Pain, Archer Ready to Defend Title

By MARTIN BECK

March 15, 1996 12 AM PT

This time last year, George Archer was in such pain because of an arthritic hip and playing golf so poorly that he considered quitting the Senior PGA Tour.

Those thoughts didn’t last long at the inaugural Toshiba Senior Classic. Archer shot three consecutive sub-70 rounds, including a final 64, to beat Dave Stockton and Tom Wargo by one stroke.

The victory kick-started Archer’s game. After going more than a year without a victory, he won again in May and finished 11th on the tour’s money list.

Now he’s back to defend his title, and although he says the pain is worse, there’s no hint of quit in Archer. “I guess I have a high tolerance for pain or a low tolerance for pain,” he said. “I don’t know, but I know I can play golf in pain.”

Archer will be defending his title on a different course. The tournament has moved to the Newport Beach Country Club, several miles toward the Pacific from last year’s site, Mesa Verde in Costa Mesa.

The field is one of the senior tour’s strongest this year, lured in part by the first $1-million purse of 1996. Seventeen of the top 20 money winners from 1995 and 16 of the top 20 on the current list are here.

Among the favorites are Bob Murphy, who has won a tour-leading $302,467 in five events, and No. 2 Hale Irwin, who has won $266,925 in four. Walter Morgan beat Gary Player in a playoff two weeks ago in Ojai. Lee Trevino says he has fully recovered from neck surgery that hurt his play for much of last year.

“There are a lot of guys who are playing extremely well,” Trevino said. “Hale Irwin’s coming in here and he’s got to be a favorite. I always look at Raymond [Floyd] and Hale Irwin if they’re in the tournament. [Jim] Colbert is right there too, Murphy. They can play this golf course; they work hard at it.”

Newport Beach’s tree-lined, 43-year-old course is playing at 6,598 yards at par 71 and places a premium on hitting it straight. Rain has softened the greens, making it easier to hold approach shots, even from the rough, Trevino said.

The greens are consistent, Trevino said, if not perfect. “They’re rolling a little, not rough, but the ball’s jumping on them a little bit.”

Putts roll extremely fast toward the ocean, so it is crucial for a player to give himself uphill putts. “You get on the wrong side of these greens, you’ve got hell to pay,” Trevino said.

Archer said it’s hard to say how the seniors will handle the course, which is new to most of them. “Today [in the pro-am] I was three under and I was the second best out there in the morning group,” Archer said. “So we’re not really tearing the golf course up. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

“It’s always hard to come to a new golf course and people ask, ‘What do you think it’s going to take to win?’ You don’t know. I’m a terrible guesser. Usually, anywhere between 12 and 17 under par wins tournaments out here.”

Archer tied for sixth in Ojai but the pain in his hip got so bad he decided to schedule hip replacement surgery in April.

His doctors had recommended that he delay the surgery as long as possible, but the pain caused him to lose sleep three nights in a row. “They told me, ‘When you can’t sleep, then you are really getting to the point where you should have it fixed,’ ” Archer said.

“It hurts when I play golf. It hurts when I go to a show and move my leg. When I go to dinner and I move my leg under the table, it hurts. It’s pretty much pain all the time.”

After this week, Archer plans to play in three more senior events, then take a fishing trip to Mexico before having surgery.

Rehabilitation after the surgery, in which a ceramic-lined titanium hip socket will be put in place, takes about three months, Archer said. After that, he plans to return to the tour. He also returned from surgery to his wrist in 1975 and his back in 1979.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if I was back playing this August,” he said. “Maybe not playing the greatest because three months away from playing golf is going to hurt, but when I had my back done I didn’t get to hit balls for nine months. And in a year, I was back playing again, making cuts and doing pretty good on the regular tour.”

Rocky Thompson shot seven-under 64 in the pro-am Thursday. The score matches the course record, but doesn’t count because it was a shotgun start. Archer and Stockton each shot 68. Gene Littler and his amateur partners won the team competition at 19-under 52.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Today’s Tee Times

Tee times for the first round of the Toshiba Senior Classic at Newport Beach Country Club:

* 8:30 a.m.--Miller Barber, Orville Moody, Jimmy Powell

* 8:40--Bob Charles, Al Geiberger, Rocky Thompson

* 8:50--Chi Chi Rodriguez, Gary Player, John Paul Cain

* 9--Jim Colbert, Jim Dent, Tommy Aaron

* 9:10--Lee Trevino, Mike Hill, Tom Wargo

* 9:20--Dave Stockton, Bob Murphy, Isao Aoki

* 9:30--George Archer, Jim Marshall, Walt Morgan

* 9:40--J.C. Snead, Hale Irwin, Tony Jacklin

* 9:50--Jay Sigel, Gibby Gilbert, Jack Kiefer