City of Trailers Is Formed to Serve the Senior Classic
There’s nothing quite like the sights, sounds and smells of a professional golf tournament--the soaring flight of a well-struck golf ball, the roar of the gallery after a long birdie putt . . . the stench of diesel fumes.
If the last example doesn’t ring true, you haven’t been behind the scenes at a Senior PGA Tour event. The tractor trailers started pulling up to Newport Beach Country Club last week for the Toshiba Senior Classic and now one corner of the parking lot looks like a truck stop.
Engines idle all day, running generators that keep the power flowing to the operations that have set up shop.
The golf club companies have their trailers here, fighting the marketing battle to see which one has the most clubs in professionals’ bags. The Senior PGA Tour has its semi-truck that shuttles scoreboards and on-course communications equipment to each tournament. Next door is the tour’s fitness trailer, packed with treadmills, weight machines and massage tables.
Professional golfers stroll about while workers in golf carts piled with telephone cables buzz by tents set up for the week. It’s an eclectic scene.
“Yes,” said Dan Howard, who works for golf equipment maker Callaway, “we are a traveling carnival.
“It’s an inside joke, but we do refer to ourselves as carnies sometimes.”
It’s certainly a nomadic job. Howard lives in San Diego, but he isn’t home much. He spends more than 40 weeks a year on the road at pro events.
It’s much the same story for Julie Cordes, who works in the senior tour’s operations trailer. She lives in Indianapolis and flies to 28 events annually. She arrived in Newport Beach last Thursday and won’t leave until Sunday night.
“I have a house that’s five years old,” Cordes said, “that is still brand new.”
Cordes leaves home for a challenging job, helping to make sure tournaments run smoothly. She and her co-workers set up and run the tournament scoring system. During competition hole-by-hole results are sent to the command center in the front end of the semi-trailer and in turn are sent out on 16 high-speed modems to ESPN, the Japanese television network NHK and a variety of Internet sites.
If there are technical problems--such as the one that shut down electronic scoring at the PGA Tour event in Tucson last week--Cordes and company must scramble to adjust. It helps that the tour also employs IBM certified technicians who double as truck drivers.
“After we’re done here we’ll drive this rig back to St. Augustine [Fla.] . . . from water to water,” said Tom Cook, who with a partner drove the truck from Florida last week.
Physical therapist Ralph Simpson used to drive a truck for the PGA Tour. Two years ago, however, the tour purchased a bigger trailer and hired drivers, so now Simpson flies to tournaments from his home in Whitefish, Mont.
He and Paul Schueren are maintaining the fitness trailer this week. About 40 professionals visit the trailer each day to work out or receive treatment for various nagging ailments. On Wednesday, Simpson worked out a kink in Jay Sigel’s back half an hour before Sigel was scheduled to tee off in the afternoon pro-am.
“These guys are great,” Sigel said.
Many of the behind-the-scenes people form friendships. They often stay in the same hotels, eat in the same restaurants.
“We end up spending more time with these guys than with our families most of the time,” Cordes said. “But the camaraderie makes it not so bad being away from home for so many weeks of the year.”
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Arnold Palmer is scheduled to make his first appearance at the Senior Classic today in the pro-am. Palmer will tee off from the first tee at 12:45 p.m. Defending champion Gary McCord will tee off in the group following Palmer.
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Senior tour rookie Doug Tewell isn’t in the field this week--he is the third alternate and only one had made it as of Wednesday--and he isn’t on many people’s minds as a rookie to watch, but Tewell is hoping for big results.
Tewell won four events on the PGA Tour, including the 1986 L.A. Open. On Sunday, he finished one stroke out of a playoff at the Senior Tour event in Sarasota, Fla., and finished tied for fourth.
Tewell said he doesn’t mind that he’s flying below most radar screens.
“Everybody is looking at Tom Watson, Tom Kite and Lanny Wadkins,” Tewell said. “I’m the fourth guy that nobody’s talking about. But that’s OK. They deserve the publicity. They’ve won far more times than I did.”
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First alternate David Lundstrom, who finished tied for fifth at the 1999 Senior Classic, replaced Charles Coody in the field.
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Tom McGinnis shot six-under 65, the low round in Wednesday’s pro-am. Wadkins, Dale Douglass and Dean Overturf, who qualified on Monday, shot 67.
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Senior Pairings
First-round starting times for Friday’s first round of the Toshiba Senior Classic at Newport Beach Country Club:
8 a.m.--Jose Maria Canizares, Stewart Ginn, Kikuo Arai.
8:10--Mike McCullough, John D. Morgan, Dean Overturf.
8:20--Tom Shaw, Ed Dougherty,Rocky Thompson.
8:30--Tommy Aaron, Gene Littler, Mark Hayes.
8:40--Jerry McGee, Butch Baird, Calvin Peete,.
8:50--Dale Douglass, John Bland, Bob Dickson.
9--Tom Wargo, Hubert Green, Dave Eichelberger.
9:10--Gary McCord, John Jacobs, Dana Quigley.
9:20--Bob Eastwood, Tom Jenkins, Bob Duval.
9:30--Lee Trevino, Isao Aoki, J.C. Snead.
9:40--Arnold Palmer, Lanny Wadkins, Larry Nelson.
9:50--Hale Irwin, Bruce Fleisher, Jim Colbert.
10--Chi Chi Rodriguez, Dave Stockton, Al Geiberger.
10:10--George Archer, Allen Doyle, Jim Dent,.
10:20--David Graham, Jimmy Powell, Graham Marsh.
10:30--John Mahaffey, Walt Morgan, Fred Gibson.
10:40--Bob Charles, Miller Barber, Don Bies.
10:50--Larry Ziegler, Jim Ahern, Tom McGinnis.
11--Jim Albus, Leonard Thompson, Jay Sigel.
11:10--Joe Inman, Hugh Baiocchi, Bruce Summerhays.
11:20--Kermit Zarley, Tom Kite, Jim Thorpe.
11:30--DeWitt Weaver, Terry Dill, Walter Zembriski.
11:40--Dave Hill, Harold Henning, Orville Moody.
11:50--Howard Twitty, David Lundstrom, Walter Hall.
Noon--Bob Lendzion, Steve Veriato, Buzz Thomas.
12:10--Roy Vucinich, Bill Brask, Ray Carrasco.