If This Is Nostalgia, Why Is Palmer So Unhappy About It?

Ready for the Nostalgia Tour?

Critics of the Senior PGA Tour (and there are many) have called it that before, but imagine the chairman of the PGA Tour Policy Board using those words to describe the pro golf tour for players over 50.

It happened when Richard Ferris testified Wednesday in Eugene, Ore., in disabled golfer Casey Martin’s lawsuit over the tour’s refusal to allow him to ride a cart during competition.

Ferris said carts are allowed at Senior PGA Tour events because “the senior tour is a nostalgia tour” where the main attraction is the chance for fans to pay $3,000-$4,000 to play pro-am rounds with the big-name golfers.

Meanwhile, the Senior PGA Tour stop is in Naples, Fla., this week. Arnold Palmer is there, but he said Thursday he isn’t playing in any Nostalgia Tour event.

“I don’t think there’s anything nostalgic about it,” Palmer said. “It’s very competitive. I think that statement was incorrect. And I hope he reads just what I said.”

Palmer joined the Senior PGA Tour in 1980, but only after he became convinced the focus was on the competition.

“I wanted to make sure it was not a nostalgia tour. I will reemphasize that word.

“You think David Graham thought it was a nostalgia tour last week [in a 10-hole playoff victory]? I don’t think so. I think he thought it was pretty heavy competition. Do you think Hale Irwin thought it was nostalgic when he won more than $2 million last year? No, I can’t believe that.”

The Senior PGA Tour began as a two-tournament circuit in 1980 with total purses of $250,000. In 1998, about $49 million is at stake in 41 tournaments.

Irwin, who won nine senior tour events and a record $2.3 million in 1997, also said he didn’t agree with Ferris’ analysis.

“I don’t think there are too many players on this tour who think of themselves as primarily nostalgic players.”

In his testimony, Ferris explained the use of carts on the Senior PGA Tour.

“It’s an economic factor,” he said. “If Arnold Palmer has an arthritic hip and can’t walk 18 holes. . . . He’s an economic draw. That’s why we allow them to use carts.”

Palmer, who is 68 and had prostate cancer surgery last year, does not ride a cart. For nostalgia’s sake, neither does he ride a horse and buggy.

TIGER RUMOR MILL

The best rumor this week is that Tiger Woods had been offered a $1-million appearance fee to play at Dubai the same week of the Nissan Open and that he was strongly considering it.

Wrong, said Hughes Norton, Woods’ agent.

“We’ve never had one word of discussion with the people at Dubai,” Norton said. “No one has ever talked to me or anybody in this office about this. Anybody who says we have has to be smoking something funny.”

As usual, Woods’ schedule is the topic of great debate, basically because he does almost nothing to clear it up.

Last week when he was asked his schedule, Woods said: “Play a little golf, take a little rest.”

Woods added this week’s Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines to his schedule because of the disaster at Pebble Beach. Whether playing this week affects his participation in the Nissan Open is unclear. Norton said Woods’ original schedule was to play at Pebble Beach, take three weeks off and then play the Nissan Open. Norton said Woods is not going to play at Tucson on Feb. 19-22.

MORE TIGER

For what it’s worth, Nike plans to spend $6.3 million on advertising in the three weeks leading up to Woods’ defense of his Masters victory.

PSST! IT’S SECRET

Know what the Pacific Bell Senior Classic is? For the last six years, it has been the Ralphs Senior Classic. Tournament officials still haven’t officially released the new title sponsor’s name, but the PGA Tour beat them to it by routinely including the event in the pocket calendar it published last month.

The tournament will be played Oct. 30-Nov. 1 at Wilshire Country Club.

BEN THERE, DONE THAT

Ben Crenshaw and CBS have parted ways, an amicable split according to both parties. Crenshaw said he simply wanted to play more golf, which he said is possible after having surgery last fall to correct a foot problem.

“CBS was wonderful to me,” Crenshaw said. “They kept wanting me to be more concise. I kept saying ‘Look, it’s very difficult for a Texas boy. It takes me 10 seconds to say hello.’ ”

THAT KILLER INSTINCT

He’s all the way back. Here’s a sure sign that Paul Azinger has totally recovered from the lymphoma that struck him five years ago: “For a long time, I just kind of walked around happy to be around, wanting to take pictures of wildlife and stuff. Now, I want to shoot it.”

NANCY’S 20TH

It’s hard to believe, but this is the 20th anniversary of Nancy Lopez’s rookie season of 1978, when she won nine times. Lopez, who has entered next week’s $650,000 Los Angeles Women’s Open at Oakmont Country Club in Glendale, was 21 when she won five consecutive times in 1978.

“It was so long ago, I think I was still sucking my thumb,” she said.

Lopez has won 47 times and is a member of the LPGA Hall of Fame. She had a quick answer when she was asked the difference between the LPGA in her rookie season and now.

“Money.”

NOT A GOOD NAP TIME

Count Lee Trevino among those who think the PGA Tour has mishandled the Casey Martin affair.

“Do you have kids? What you do is tell your kids you’re buying Christmas presents and then wrap up empty boxes and put them under the tree. When they open them at Christmas, they’ll be empty.

“The tour has done the same thing. They let him qualify with a golf cart and then told him after he qualified that he couldn’t have one. You can’t do that. There’s no question in my mind that the tour will lose the case. Somebody in Jacksonville [PGA Tour headquarters] was asleep at the wheel.”

If the PGA Tour loses, Trevino said he has heard that the appeal process could last 18 months.

BIRDIES, BOGEYS, PARS

As usual, the Masters is sold out for this year’s event, April 9-12, which means that no admission tickets will be sold at the gate for either practice rounds or tournament rounds. . . . Interactive sports attractions for fans, which has been extremely popular in the NBA, the NFL and major league baseball, are happening in golf. Target’s LPGA Fan Village, where fans can test swings and have them analyzed by using cameras and computers, will be in use at the Los Angeles Women’s Championship next week. Target will present the Fan Villages at 10 LPGA events in 1998. . . . A free clinic, the Crayola LPGA Tour Junior Golf Clinic, will be held at the Nabisco Dinah Shore, at 4 p.m. March 24 on the driving range at Mission Hills Country Club. Details: (760) 324-4546.

Mercury signed a three-year deal to become the title sponsor of the $1-million Titleholders Championship, which will be played April 30-May 3 at the LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Fla. Sprint, the title sponsor for eight years, offered a $1.2-million purse in 1997. . . . The Granada Hills Community Hospital Foundation’s tournament will be held April 13 at Spanish Hills in Camarillo. Proceeds from the event will be used for hospital expansion. . . . Volunteers are needed for the U.S. Senior Open, July 23-26 at Riviera. Details: (888) 794-6498. . . . The second Downey Chamber of Commerce tournament will be held March 20 at Rio Hondo Country Club. Details: (562) 923-2191. . . . Biggest official money purse on the LPGA Tour? It’s $1.5 million at the U.S. Open, July 2-5 at Blackwolf Run in Kohler, Wis. The USGA made a $200,000 increase from 1997.

Barbara McIntire of Colorado Springs, a two-time U.S. Women’s Amateur champion, has been named captain of the U.S. Curtis Cup team. McIntire, 63, will lead a team of eight amateurs against a team from Great Britain and Ireland at the Minikahda Club in Minneapolis, Aug. 1-2. McIntire is a six-time Curtis Cup member and captain of the winning 1976 team. . . . Fuzzy Zoeller has signed a three-year deal worth nearly $1 million with Daiwa Golf and another deal to wear Ocean Waves sunglasses. Zoeller lost his endorsement deal with Kmart after making racially insensitive jokes about Woods at last year’s Masters.