Fuzzy-Cheeked Youngster Can Help Invigorate Seniors

While it’s becoming downright fashionable to kick the Senior PGA Tour while it’s down, do not despair, because help is on the way.

If there is anyone or anything that can pull the senior tour out of its nose dive in polyester (there we go again), it would be one Frank Urban Zoeller.

As it turns out, all the senior tour really needs is some Fuzzy thinking.

Fuzzy Zoeller turns 50 on Nov. 11 and it’s not a minute too soon for the personality-starved collection of born-again grinders and whiners who are in danger of taking all the fun out of the senior tour.

It used to be a fun place to play, with the zesty Chi Chi’s out there along with the must-see icons of the game such as Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer and Gary Player and Lee Trevino.

So it’s hardly a stretch to say that a big dose of Fuzzy is just what the doctor ordered. Zoeller represents a return to the good old (read successful) days of the senior tour, which took root in 1983 as a three-quarter Nostalgia Tour and a one-quarter Competition Tour.

And Zoeller is getting ready to put down his beverage, roll out of the locker room and start having some fun.

Dave Lobeck, his agent at Fuzzy Zoeller Productions in New Albany, Ind., says Zoeller plans to play the senior tour hard for five years.

“And then he’ll probably ride off into the sunset,” Lobeck said.

Chances are when that happens, nobody is going to ask, “Who was that guy swinging his club as he walks down the fairway whistling all the time?”

Preparations for Zoeller’s entry into the senior tour are already being made. Just as it did with Tom Watson, Tom Kite and Lanny Wadkins, the tour expects to whip up a publicity campaign for its newest, big-name senior.

“Any time someone new comes out, I think they’ll do a few special things for him,” said Dave Lancer, the PGA Tour’s director of information. “I think Fuzzy will create a little more pizazz.”

And he might even make it pay off for himself.

“We’re cognizant of the fact that Fuzzy will have a large impact on the senior tour,” Lobeck said.

Part of this also means endorsement deals. Lobeck said there is an opening for a sponsor to put its logo on Zoeller’s shirt, which is the only place left on his clothing because he doesn’t wear headgear.

Zoeller already has endorsement deals with Srixon for golf balls, an agreement that ends in January; and with Carbite Golf for clubs, an extension of his 1997 deal with Daiwa.

Zoeller markets his own line of sportswear, mostly to pro shops, after losing his deal with Kmart because of his controversial remarks about Tiger Woods at the 1997 Masters.

That was the low point in Zoeller’s career, one that also includes the 1979 Masters and 1984 U.S. Open among 10 victories and nearly $6 million in prize money. Although Zoeller hasn’t played well in awhile, he was still as high as No. 101 on the money list as a 47-year-old in 1998.

Lobeck said Zoeller played hurt most of last year, when what he thought was a rotator cuff injury turned out to be a disc in his neck. Zoeller is finally playing pain free, Lobeck said.

He’s just not playing very successfully: nine tournaments, six missed cuts and the last five in a row, nothing better than a tie for 43rd at Pebble Beach, only $26,865 in prize money.

At the same time, Zoeller is playing to get his touch back, besides making something of a farewell tour on the junior circuit. And most everywhere Zoeller goes, he is greeted warmly as he makes his way out the door.

“People see his easygoing nature, but he has the heart of a bull,” Lobeck said. “We’re very excited about the senior tour.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

From Zoeller: “The greatest thing about golf is there’s no end to it unless you’re dead. You just go from here to the senior tour.”

TIM’S WORLD

PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem showed up at the Bruno’s Memorial Classic and delivered a pep talk about the senior tour, which he said is “second only to the PGA Tour in its quality and intensity.”

Let’s not even think about how the European PGA Tour would react to that.

Finchem went on to say he hasn’t noticed scoring affected much despite the courses having been lengthened, that CNBC is the right television venue for the senior tour and that declining ratings aren’t news because they’ve been dipping for the last eight years.

“I continue to believe that the best of the senior tour is still ahead of us,” he said.

It’s starting to look like a full-blown public relations campaign. Bob Combs, the tour’s senior vice president for communications, wrote a long letter to the editor printed in the latest edition of Golfweek, praising the senior tour.

“With all that’s transpired, we view 2001 as the dawning of a new era and new direction for the senior tour and are confident the future is as bright as our past,” Combs said in the letter.

Anybody hear that orchestra music in the background?

NOT EVEN AN EAGLES’ SONG

Woods, asked at Tiger Jam II (his charity event in Las Vegas) if songs pop into his head when he’s on the course: “If songs ran through my head, I’d be thinking about the wrong things.”

MONEY NEWS

News item: Annika Sorenstam needs to finish at least sixth at the LPGA’s Chick-fil-A tournament (and win $39,736) to become the tour’s first player to win $7 million in a career.

Reaction: Woods made

$9.18 million last year.

HAPPY HUNTER

They’re happy over at USC, because the Trojans won the Pacific 10 Conference title last weekend at Stanford. What’s more, freshman Hunter Mahan was named freshman of the year and selected to the Pac-10’s first team after his runner-up finish in the conference tournament. Plus, Coach Kurt Schuette was named coach of the year.

Mahan, from McKinney, Texas, lost by three shots to Arizona sophomore Ricky Barnes in the tournament despite closing with a bogey-free round of 67. Mahan and Barnes are developing a rivalry--it was Mahan who defeated Barnes, 3 and 2, in last year’s U.S. Amateur.

USC’s conference title was its first since 1986. UCLA was fifth, 30 shots behind USC.

Mahan won two tournaments this season, had three other top 10s and shot what is believed to be the lowest round in school history--a 63 at the Jerry Pate Intercollegiate.

ROUND MOUND UPDATE

News item: Charles Barkley will play in today’s pro-am at the LPGA’s Chick-fil-A Charity Championship in Stockbridge, Ga.

Reaction: For a guy with a huge weight problem playing in an event sponsored by the nation’s third largest chicken restaurant chain, he should be glad there isn’t a Krispy Kreme Open.

NO, YOU WERE ON THE RANGE

And while we’re on the subject of Krispy Kremes, 20-year-old Aaron Baddeley, a health-food nut, tried his first one last week.

Said Baddeley: “The sugar rush made me dizzy. It felt like someone had hit me in the forehead.”

HE’S GOODELEY NOW

Baddeley ended his streak of 11 consecutive missed cuts on the PGA Tour, tying for 61st at Greensboro. He probably will not celebrate with a doughnut.

HE’S LESS MONTY NOW

Colin Montgomerie missed the cut at the Algarve Portuguese Open--his second consecutive missed cut, which hasn’t happened in 2 1/2 years. He’s playing so poorly he pulled out of this week’s French Open.

MONEY NEWS

For another indication that new PGA Tour sponsorship rights are reaching the $6-million-a-year level, we give you the Phoenix Open, where Xerox turned down a two-year option to continue as presenting sponsor upon discovering it was looking at a $12-million tab.

Xerox paid $9.5 million in a three-year deal that ends after next January’s tournament. Organizers are trying to lock up a sponsor for four years (beginning in 2003) and willing to invest, ahem, a very cool $24 million.

TICK TOCK

It was clearly a deal whose time has come. Omega, the Swiss watch company, has signed on to become the Official Timekeeper of the PGA Tour. Wow, the clock must have been ticking to get that contract done.

Omega will put up permanent glass clocks at all 21 of the tour-owned Tournament Players Club courses. Glass? Hopefully they won’t stick them close to the driving range.

HOCH-EY STUFF

How to win a golf tournament and make enemies, brought to you by Scott Hoch.

After complaining (for some reason) about the lack of high rough at the Greater Greensboro tournament, reaction was swift. Hoch got a quick phone call from Finchem and somebody left an anonymous note in Hoch’s locker: ‘Stop saying all that stupid stuff.’

Hoch, who has made a career of saying borderline stupid stuff, didn’t let up and he went on to win by one shot, but not without getting teased by Scott Simpson: “For someone who complains so much about the rough, I haven’t seen his name on any U.S. Open trophies.”

Funny, but Hoch stopped complaining once he got his hands on the $630,000 winner’s check: “Hey, the rough was perfect after all.”

By the way, Hoch was ticketed for speeding (70 miles an hour in a 55-mph zone) on U.S. 421 on Thursday night after the first round. And he couldn’t talk his way out of that one?

MAC UPDATE

Mac O’Grady, free spirit and Deane Beman’s personal one-man tormenting squad, turned 50 last week. But he isn’t interested in the senior tour. Instead, O’Grady plans to return to the PGA Tour through the qualifying-school route . . . and play left-handed.

Said O’Grady: “The side of my brain that controls my left side is still young. It’s not beaten down with bad memories.”

THESE JUST IN

The USGA accepted 8,398 entries for U.S. Open qualifying--2,045 through the USGA’s Internet site. The overall total is 59 short of last year’s record of 8,457.

Also, Watson says he isn’t going to try regional qualifying, which would end his streak of playing in 29 consecutive U.S. Opens.

JACK’S HOUSE (NO. 6)

So why is Nicklaus playing the PGA Tour stop in New Orleans this week? Uh, he likes the course, which is natural because he designed it. In fact, English Turn is one of six Nicklaus-designed courses played on the PGA Tour this year: Harbour Town Golf Links (with Pete Dye), Muirfield Village, Castle Pines, Montreaux and Annandale are the others.

THEY USED TIN CUPS

News item: Kevin Costner wins the amateur division of the pro-am format at the Buy.com Charity Classic.

Reaction: Shouldn’t he be using his valuable time to work on his acting?

BIRDIES, BOGEYS, PARS

The American Diabetes Assn., African American Chapter, will hold a tournament Monday at Los Verdes Country Club in Rancho Palos Verdes. Details: (323) 966-2890, ext. 7447.

The Tustin Kiwanis Club’s celebrity event is May 20 at Tustin Ranch Golf Club. Details: (760) 632-7770.