It was some 20-25 years ago that the PGA Senior Tour was the talk of the world of golf. The senior circuit”s marquee linksters were past greats from golf”s golden era of the 1960s. Those frequenting the top of the leaderboards included Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Billy Casper, Lee Trevino, Sam Snead, Robert de Vicenzo, Charlie Siffort and Chi Chi Rodriguez.
One of the reasons that the Senior Tour was an immediate hit was because it was a really neat walk down memory lane. Secondly, the professionals of the past were playing for far more money than they had ever accumulated during their prime and they went out of their way to connect with their fans. Finally, the old-timers could still really play great golf.
The 1979 Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf, a senior two-man better ball competition over 54 holes, brought the concept of senior golf to the masses. Before a nationally televised audience, the twosome of Julius Boros and Roberto de Vincenzo won a six-hole sudden-death playoff over Tommy Bolt and Art Wall. They did it in grand style. The four golfers, all former major champions, matched one another birdie for birdie over the initial five playoff holes. The Boros-de Vincenzo team rolled in a birdie on the sixth playoff hole to finally prevail. It was an impressive display of brilliant golf and it was the seed that led to the growth of the Senior Tour.
The Senior Tour was founded the following year in 1980 and within five years it was a hot-ticket item. Other high-profile names such as Gene Littler, Al Geiberger, Lee Elder, Orville Moody, Don January and Bruce Crampton joined the aforementioned senior stars.
Yet the golden age of the 1960s that was playing out on the PGA Senior Tour during the 1980s and early 1990s had a limited lifespan. We learned that most seniors hit an imaginary wall once they reach age 55 and saw their skills diminish. Also, the magical nature of Senior Tour leaderboards was starting to weaken. Palmer, Nicklaus, Player and Trevino were no longer winning. A newer generation of senior stars came to the forefront led by longtime journeymen such as Loren Roberts and Jay Haas, neither of whom had ever won a grand slam title in their careers. Their chief rivals were talented golfers with limited golf resumes such as Dana Quigley, Allen Doyle, David Eger, R.W. Eaks and Gary McCord.
As we enter the third month of 2010, people are starting to take notice of the Senior Tour, now called the Champions Tour, once again. The excitement is because of the early-season performances of rookie senior Fred Couples. The recently turned 50-year-old opened his senior career as the runner-up at the Mitsbushi Championship in Hawaii. The former Masters champion then recorded back-to-back victories at the ACE Group Classic and last week”s Toshiba Classic. Couples is extremely popular with his legions of golf fans because of his easy-going, fan-friendly nature and his smooth, stress-free swing.
Freddie Couples is exactly what the Senior Tour has been looking for. A municipal course golfer who grew up in Seattle and played for the University of Houston golf team alongside Blaine McCallister, Couples was the roommate of future CBS golf commentator Jim Nantz. He had a breakout victory in the 1983 Kemper Open and then really got people noticing him when he captured the prestigious Players Championship in 1984. He was the PGA Player of the Year in 1991 and 1992, won the 1992 Masters, was atop the world golf rankings in 1992, and maintained a solid career into the new century, almost winning the Masters in 2006. He was also the captain of the victorious Presidents Cup team at Harding Park this past autumn.
The big problem with Couples is that he can”t exactly carry the Senior Tour on his back, literally and figuratively. He has always had to play a limited schedule because of chronic back problems. Couples would go missing from competition for large stretches because of his aching back.
The other dilemma that faces today”s Senior Tour is that Couples” worthy adversaries from the 1990s are nowhere in sight. The strength of the Senior Tour of the 1980s was that you would have final-round shootouts between names such as Palmer, Nicklaus and Player, just like it was when they were teeing it up in 1965. However, Couples is winning tourneys against journeymen such as Tommy Armour III and Ronnie Black.
There are many varied reasons for this predicament. Couples was a top-notch player at a time when his main competition came from overseas. Greg Norman was the best player of the era. He has chosen to play a very limited senior schedule, generally in the summer around the time of the U.S. Senior Open, the British Open and the Senior British Open. Nick Faldo, with six major titles to his credit, was them most successful golfer of that time. We see a lot of Faldo these days, but it”s usually in the booth on the weekend golf telecasts. The other dynamic player of that era, Seve Ballesteros, has major health concerns and is still trying to fully recover from brain cancer surgery. Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino had each other on the senior circuit during the early 1990s. Fred Couples doesn”t and he”ll have to wait until April of 2014 for his chief tour rival, Davis Love III, to join him on the over-50 circuit.
Nonetheless, it”s good to see Fred Couples doing what he does best for the benefit of the Champions Tour. He has that “common man” touch that is so very well appreciated and liked by fans of the game. Plus he can still strike the ball with the best of them. He remained competitive on the regular tour through age 49, recording top-three finishes last year at the Phoenix Open and the Houston Open. He still plays the game a lot like the way he did when he first joined the PGA Tour in 1982.
Fred Couples has provided a much-needed boost to the fortunes of the Champions Tour. Now if only his back will hold up and allow him to play in 20 tournaments annually. If that proves to be the case, he just might win five or six times this year.
