Course Gets Finishing Touches
The thousands of spectators who pour into the Newport Beach County Club for the Toshiba Senior Classic this weekend will have plenty to see besides the top Senior Tour golfers.
Start with a lush, green 6,600-yard course that withstood last month’s rains. First-come, first-serve bleacher seating will bookend the four elevated corporate grandstands around the 18th green. ESPN cameras will perch on six scaffolds while three hand-held cameras will get up close and personal. And don’t worry about getting lost; there are 775 signs placed around the course to tell you everything from where to purchase tickets to how to find the various food tents.
The tournament is the major fund-raiser for Hoag Memorial Hospital. This is the first year of a three-year contract.
But those involved say running a Senior PGA Tour event is a much bigger deal than running the mini-tour event that had been Hoag’s fund-raiser the last 23 years.
“The difference is the Taco Bell tournament was a three-day event and this is a week-long event,” said Jake Rohrer, the tournament’s co-chairman. “We have many of the same challenges but on a much larger scale. It’s probably triple the workload.”
But much of the labor is complete.
For the last two weeks, workers have been building the grandstands and putting up white plastic hospitality tents for the corporate sponsors and their guests. Also operational are two mini-expos, one exclusively presenting Toshiba products, and the other housing 16 other vendors.
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A 1,000-member volunteer force, whose members each paid $50 (for uniforms) to work the tournament, is set to check in the pros and amateurs, and direct the general public.
On Monday the volunteers got a taste of what the week would be like when they handled problems large and small during a celebrity pro-am tournament featuring NFL players. Dallas Cowboy quarterback Troy Aikman drew one of the bigger galleries.
“There are still a couple of things left to do and we were a bit behind schedule, but for the most part we’re in good shape,” said Jeff Purser, tournament director. “Today was good practice for what will happen [during the two-day pro-am] Wednesday and Thursday. Many of the volunteers and tournament committee people had worked on the Taco Bell tournaments, but were rookies for this kind of tournament. Today we get to iron out the kinks.”
Purser said workers would spend today and Wednesday putting up all those signs, which range from 1 1/2 feet by 1 1/2 feet to eight feet by 10 feet. “But most of all, we’ll make sure people have had a good time when they leave here.”
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The ESPN television crews were also working Monday, laying out the 15,000 feet of camera cable along the course. “That’s small,” said Mike Armatta, technical director. “There have been some tournaments where we’ve needed 120,000 feet of cable.”
Armatta said two semi-trailer trucks of equipment arrived at the course last Thursday, but only a skeleton crew is presently on site. “We’ll have 80 people here by Friday,” he said. The golf course presents some difficult camera angles, but nothing insurmountable.
“Few golf courses are built with television in mind,” Armatta said. “But this course and the one in Costa Mesa [Mesa Verde] are two of the easiest to shoot.”
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Monday qualifiers: Harry Toscano, who has filed a lawsuit against the Senior Tour, and Ray Carrasco of Irvine were two of the four players who earned spots in the field at the qualifying event Monday on the south course at Los Serranos Country Club in Chino Hills.
Toscano, from Sarasota, Fla., had the low round with a five-under 69. He is suing the tour and selected sponsors for $9 million alleging a conspiracy that limits the field to certain players.
This is the second consecutive year that Carrasco, who is a teaching professional, has made the field. He tied for 63rd last year and won $1,350 after rounds of 70-75-76. He shot 72 Monday. Terry Wiens of New Westminster, which is near Vancouver, shot 70 and Jimmie Jones of Palmdale had 71 and also made the field.