Wisecracking McCord Gets the Last Laugh, Wins Classic

Gary McCord, best known as the class clown of professional golf, kept the people and his opponents laughing at the Toshiba Senior Classic, but when it was over, the funny guy walked off with the biggest check.

McCord, the handlebar-mustached lead color analyst for CBS’ golf coverage, outlasted longtime friend John Jacobs in a five-hole playoff for the tournament title to win $180,000. It ended a long victory drought for McCord. “I haven’t won since Nixon was a president,” he said.

Not quite that long. McCord did win a Ben Hogan Tour event in 1991, but in 376 PGA Tour events over 25 years, he never finished higher than second. He has made a career out of witty banter that includes self-deprecating attacks on his golf game. His license plate reads “NOWINS.”

After this victory he might have to adjust his spiel. “I’ll blame it on something. I’ll come up with something, something extraterrestrial,” he said. “Nobody will understand it and I’ll stick with it.”

Jacobs, who lives near McCord in Scottsdale, Ariz., and sees McCord’s game often, said don’t buy the act.

“Don’t listen to all of Gary’s B.S.,” Jacobs said, “because he’s a good player. He was a hell of a player on the other tour. He wanted to do magic, he wanted to do all this other stuff.”

McCord, who still has other priorities, says the victory won’t change the way he is approaching his play on the senior tour. He is producing a movie and working on a pilot for a sitcom. He recently finished a third book and is working on a fourth. Add his TV golf commitment and there is no time for more than the 12 events he plans to play.

“I don’t want to do that one thing the rest of my life,” McCord said. “I’ve got to a very nice position for not being able to play a lick to have all these things out in front of me.

“I’m a pig at a banquet. I want to do all that stuff. Not just one gig.”

At Sunday’s gig, McCord beat Jacobs with a three-foot birdie putt in the playoff on the 16th hole, ending the tournament more than an hour after its expected finish. It was the second time in three years the Newport Beach event went overtime. In 1997, Bob Murphy made an 80-foot putt on the ninth extra hole to beat Jay Sigel.

This playoff, which proved to be just as dramatic as the last, started as a four-way battle between McCord, Jacobs, Allen Doyle and Al Geiberger, and only because Geiberger made bogey on the 18th hole to fall back into the tie at nine-under-par 204 for three rounds.

Doyle and Geiberger were eliminated on the first sudden-death playoff hole--the 510-yard, par-five 18th--both waiting to attempt putts for birdie. Jacobs, a long-driving Sean Connery look-alike, hit a chip shot from about 10 yards off the green that curved into the hole for eagle.

Jacobs then went into a twinkle-toes dance celebration, complete with an imitation of Chi Chi Rodriguez’s sword dance, and fell back onto the turf, as McCord stood nearby waiting to try a 15-foot putt for eagle. After order was restored, McCord rolled in the putt to the delight of the gallery that had swelled to 10-deep around the green.

“I knew I wasn’t going to have the opportunity to two-putt that green and win,” McCord said. “Then he made it and it was kind of fun and it got to the point of ‘OK, all right, let’s go.’ Start getting the people hooting and hollering, and I make it and now it’s fun for everybody.”

McCord, who became the first player to win on a sponsor’s exemption since Tony Jacklin in 1994, had an excellent chance to finish the playoff on the fourth extra hole--the 18th--but missed a 3 1/2-foot birdie putt.

“A couple of those putts I didn’t want to make,” McCord deadpanned, “because I wanted to keep it going. A lot of people were following us and the TV was on. And I’m a little bit of a ham anyway.

“Then it got to the point where it was getting dark, so I had to put J.J. away.”

The playoff only came about because of an uncharacteristic slip by Geiberger, the steady 61-year-old who for much of the afternoon seemed on the verge of his 11th Senior PGA Tour victory. Geiberger, best known as the first person to shoot 59 in a PGA Tour event in 1977, had a two-shot lead when he teed off on the par-five 18th, a hole he birdied in the first two rounds.

In the group ahead of him, however, Doyle, who was going for back-to-back senior tour victories, and McCord each birdied the 18th to pull one shot closer. The two had also birdied the par-three 17th, the hole that played the toughest during the tournament.

That seemed good enough for only second place with Geiberger needing only a par to win, but he made a bad chip over the green with his third shot. Then he left his next shot--with a putter from the fringe--about five feet short of the hole. Jacobs, who started the day with a one-stroke lead, made an eight-footer for birdie to get to nine under immediately before Geiberger missed his five-foot par putt and made the bogey that prolonged the tournament.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Final Round

Final scores with relation to par Sunday and money winnings from the Toshiba Senior Classic, played on the 6,584-yard, par-71 Newport Country Club:

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x-Gary McCord $180,000 67-68-69--204 -9 Allen Doyle $88,000 68-68-68--204 -9 John Jacobs $88,000 67-67-70--204 -9 Al Geiberger $88,000 69-66-69--204 -9 David Lundstrom $52,800 70-68-67--205 -8 Dana Quigley $52,800 68-67-70--205 -8 George Archer $43,200 71-67-68--206 -7 Chi Chi Rodriguez $30,400 73-67-67--207 -6 John Mahaffey $30,400 71-69-67--207 -6 Tom McGinnis $30,400 69-69-69--207 -6 Bob Duval $30,400 68-70-69--207 -6 Tom Jenkins $30,400 67-70-70--207 -6 Walter Hall $30,400 69-68-70--207 -6 John Bland $21,600 70-71-67--208 -5 Bruce Summerhays $21,600 67-72-69--208 -5 Hale Irwin $21,600 68-69-71--208 -5 Bob Dickson $16,460 73-69-67--209 -4 Gary Player $16,460 71-69-69--209 -4 Dave Stockton $16,460 74-66-69--209 -4 Gil Morgan $16,460 68-70-71--209 -4 Butch Baird $16,460 69-70-70--209 -4 Jay Sigel $16,460 70-68-71--209 -4 J.C. Snead $12,600 73-70-67--210 -3 Howard Twitty $12,600 68-73-69--210 -3 Jim Albus $12,600 68-72-70--210 -3 Bob Murphy $9,977 70-72-69--211 -2 Rocky Thompson $9,977 73-69-69--211 -2 DeWitt Weaver $9,977 73-69-69--211 -2 Terry Dill $9,977 69-72-70--211 -2 Mike McCullough $9,977 72-68-71--211 -2 Charles Coody $9,977 73-67-71--211 -2 Hubert Green $9,977 71-68-72--211 -2 Dale Douglass $7,740 74-71-67--212 -1 Gay Brewer $7,740 71-72-69--212 -1 Lee Trevino $7,740 72-69-71--212 -1 Tom Wargo $7,740 68-69-75--212 -1 Ray Carrasco $6,720 72-72-69--213 E Jim Thorpe $6,720 71-71-71--213 E Frank Conner $6,000 69-75-70--214 +1 Bill Hall $6,000 70-73-71--214 +1 Joe Inman $6,000 70-72-72--214 +1 Graham Marsh $6,000 70-68-76--214 +1 Bob Wynn $4,800 72-73-70--215 +2 Tom Shaw $4,800 72-73-70--215 +2 Gibby Gilbert $4,800 71-73-71--215 +2 Babe Hiskey $4,800 71-71-73--215 +2 Walter Zembriski $4,800 72-70-73--215 +2 Larry Ziegler $4,800 72-69-74--215 +2 Barney Thompson $3,380 72-75-69--216 +3 Steve Veriato $3,380 77-69-70--216 +3 Larry Laoretti $3,380 73-71-72--216 +3 Fred Gibson $3,380 75-69-72--216 +3 Bob Eastwood $3,380 75-68-73--216 +3 Dave Eichelberger $3,380 74-68-74--216 +3 Orville Moody $2,280 75-71-71--217 +4 Leonard Thompson $2,280 75-72-70--217 +4 David Graham $2,280 71-74-72--217 +4 Walt Morgan $2,280 74-71-72--217 +4 Alberto Giannone $2,280 75-69-73--217 +4 John D. Morgan $2,280 72-71-74--217 +4 Miller Barber $2,280 74-69-74--217 +4 Bobby Nichols $2,280 73-69-75--217 +4 Hugh Baiocchi $2,280 73-69-75--217 +4 Rick Acton $1,620 75-71-72--218 +5 Jimmy Powell $1,620 73-71-74--218 +5 Dave Hill $1,380 76-72-71--219 +6 Gene Littler $1,380 72-73-74--219 +6 Don January $1,128 77-71-72--220 +7 Larry Mowry $1,128 72-73-75--220 +7 Calvin Peete $1,128 71-74-75--220 +7 Jim Ferree $882 72-76-73--221 +8 Harold Henning $882 75-75-71--221 +8 Don Bies $882 77-70-74--221 +8 Jerry McGee $882 76-70-75--221 +8 Dick Hendrickson $744 78-74-74--226 +13 Lee Elder $696 77-76-83--236 +23 Norm Davis $648 86-77-77--240 +27 Larry Nelson 76-73-WD

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x-Won on fifth playoff hole