Palmer Joins the Field for Senior Classic

Arnold Palmer will play next month in the Toshiba Senior Classic, marking the first time he will compete in Orange County’s only major professional golf tournament.

Palmer, 70, is still one of the top spectator draws on the Senior PGA Tour despite his diminishing skills.

Palmer didn’t play the tournament in its first five years primarily because of time conflicts with the tournament he hosts every March at Bay Hill in Orlando, Fla. This year, the Senior Classic was moved up a week and will be played March 3-5 at Newport Beach Country Club.

As soon as the season schedule was announced, Senior Classic tournament director Jeff Purser started lobbying to get Palmer to play.

“We had everyone with even the subtlest connection to him making calls,” Purser said.

Palmer won 60 tournaments in his PGA Tour career and 10 on the senior tour, the last in 1988. Palmer, whose wife, Winnie, died in November, played in only 10 events in 1999.