Colbert Can’t Buy Fact That He’s Almost Out of Top 30

Jim Colbert admits it. OK, he likes money. And as we all know, there are few better places to make money than the Senior PGA Tour, but Colbert said that’s not the reason he came back to play the last four events of the year.

Colbert had been out since June after having prostate cancer surgery and said he didn’t think he’d be back until 1998. But he changed his mind. He said it wasn’t because of money--the money he wasn’t making.

Colbert was No. 8 on the money list when he left and No. 27 when he came back--and the top 30 make the $1.7-million Senior Tour Championship, where $328,000 goes to the winner.

“I didn’t come back just to make the top 30,” Colbert said. “It wouldn’t bother me miss the Tour Championship. It would bother me to play badly.”

Having said that, Colbert pointed out he had won the year’s richest tournament in three of the last five years. The tournament is Nov. 6-9 at the Dunes in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

“Money makes it interesting,” Colbert said. “I get a kick out of it. It’s not the spending, it’s the getting. Just to see if I can do it. I have this guy inside of me saying ‘OK, let’s see.’ ”

Colbert begins the Ralphs Senior Classic at No. 29, about $2,000 ahead of Bob Dickson and about $6,000 ahead of J.C. Snead.

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Rick Acton’s second-place finish in last weekend’s Raley’s Gold Rush was worth $79,200, which is probably going to make him feel a lot better about what’s going to happen to him in the off-season.

Acton, 51, will have surgery on both knees and must have his left knee replaced. A former University of Washington pitcher, Acton has had five knee operations. He had a 1976 automobile accident in which he broke both his knees and fractured his jaw in six places.

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For a long time, you have been able to find Chi Chi Rodriguez on the greens, waving his putter like a sword. Now you can find him on the Internet at www.golfmundi.com.

Rodriguez is an investor, spokesman and host of GOLFMundi, which features not only Rodriguez’s life, but also golf and travel opportunities.

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Ben Smith, David Ojala and Walter Hall qualified for the Ralphs Senior Classic out of a field of 93. Hall defeated Mike Hearn and Gary Dickson in a sudden-death playoff.

Bob Duval wasn’t very fortunate. Duval, who is No. 28 on the senior tour money list, missed getting into a playoff by one shot. Duval was trying to protect his position on the money list, from which the top 30 qualify to play in the Senior Tour Championship.

Duval has won $482,601 and must keep an eye on No. 31 J.C. Snead, No. 32 Hubert Green, No. 33 Gibby Gilbert and No. 35 Dana Quigley.

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For what it’s worth, Don January was the leading money winner in 1980, the first year of the Senior PGA Tour, with $44,100. Hale Irwin leads this year’s money list with $2.13 million and there are 91 players with at least $44,339. . . . In the over-60 competition, Jimmy Powell has won $244,504 and Bob Charles is second with $217,620.