Rain Doesn’t Spoil Doyle’s Day

Allen Doyle got up Sunday morning expecting to have to work for his first Senior PGA Tour victory of 2000, but as he neared Newport Beach Country Club, that seemed less and less necessary.

“When I drove to the golf course,” said Doyle, who was leading the Toshiba Senior Classic by one stroke after 36 holes, “I said, ‘Wow, there’s been a lot of rain.’ ”

To say the least. About an inch and a half had fallen since Doyle made a birdie on the 18th hole Saturday afternoon. That one-foot putt proved to be the winner when Sunday’s final round was canceled at 8:30 a.m. because the course was unplayable.

It was still raining hard half an hour later when Doyle accepted the winner’s check for $195,000 as 25-mph wind gusts buffeted the media tent. Moments later the wind blew through a Velcro seam in the tent and Doyle was moved inside the clubhouse to talk to reporters.

Clearly, it wasn’t a day to be playing golf.

Senior PGA Tour officials had hoped to avoid the worst of the rain by starting 30 minutes early off the first and 10th tees, but it poured all night. When officials reached the course at 6:30 a.m., they found that most greens and tees were under water. The start was delayed for an hour, then two, but when the weather continued to deteriorate the tournament was quickly called.

By that time, golfers were expecting the news and exchanging inundation reports.

“You just heard some of the guys say that even No. 2 green was under water and that’s the high point of the golf course,” Doyle said. “And then someone said that the superintendent said that there were four to six fairways that you couldn’t pass.

“That about said it all.”

Doyle, who won four tournaments as a senior tour rookie in 1999, put himself into position to win this time with a remarkable back nine on Saturday. He birdied five of the final eight holes, including 17 and 18, to shoot four-under-par 67 and finish six-under 136. During his run, Doyle started to think that leading after the second round might mean something.

“I was very conscious of that when I got to 18,” he said Saturday. “You know I got to thinking, ‘Jeez, if I could get to six [under] and something does happen . . . ‘ “

He wasn’t the only one with that thought. Howard Twitty, who finished in a second-place tie with Jim Thorpe one shot behind Doyle, said it was in the back of his mind when he was putting from the fringe on the 18th green for a birdie to move into a tie for the lead.

The 15-foot putt missed narrowly. By an inch, someone suggested Sunday.

“It was a lot less than an inch,” Twitty said.

If the putt had fallen, Doyle and Twitty would have played off for the title Sunday. Tournament officials would have waited for a break in the weather, prepared a par-three hole and had them play it until there was a winner.

Instead of a chance at his first senior tour title, however, Twitty, who won three times during a 25-year career on the regular tour, settled for the $104,000 second-place share and his highest finish in two years as a senior. Considering where he has finished in three previous events in 2000--tied for 51st, 44th and 33rd--Twitty was quite pleased.

“I’m happy I hit a good putt on the 18th hole,” he said. “I had a putt that I knew might put me in a playoff and I hit a good putt.”

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Tournament director Jeff Purser said Sunday that the tournament made more than $1 million in profit, but that the check to Hoag Hospital Foundation, the charity beneficiary, will likely be somewhat less than that because of the inclement weather. The tournament raised $828,500 last year and $700,000 in 1998 and was shooting to become the first senior tour event to present a million-dollar check to charity.

Purser said the tournament will reinvest some portion of the proceeds into the 2001 tournament and do something special for sponsors who lost the benefit of a final round this year.

“We’ll do something to help them ease the pain,” Purser said. “But had we had the great weather we would have seen a million dollars go to charity. No question about it.”