I have a lot of great memories with regard to the old Transamerica Championship that used to be held at the Silverado Resort and Country Club during the 1990s. It was a great way to see the past greats of the game in an intimate setting. It was also a great way for local Lake County junior golfers to see the Senior PGA Tour events, so it was easy to stand right alongside Arnold Palmer or Lee Trevino or Hale Irwin and watch them up close and personal. Just the banter between Trevino and his longtime caddie, Herman Edwards, was worth the price of the admission.
Sad to say, sometimes good things do come to an end and after having a 14-year run from 1989 through 2002, the Transamerica closed up shop and was no more, a trend that was somewhat common at the turn of the century as senior tour events dried up. It had been very cool to have professional golf less than 90 miles away on a golf course that was open to the golfing public. Yes, the Senior PGA Tour at Napa”s Silverado was a very cool, very fan-friendly experience.
Although you”ve got to drive a little bit farther down the road from Lake County this time around, the greats of senior gold return to Northern California next Thursday with the playing of the Charles Schwab Cup at the Harding Park Gold Course. The Schwab will run from Oct. 31 through Nov. 3 at the venerable and historic public course located in San Francisco”s southwest quadrant alongside the shores of Lake Merced.
The Schwab is the Champions Tour”s version of its season-ending tour championship. It is also a tournament within a tournament in that it recognizes a 72-hole champion who stands to pocket the winner”s purse of $440,000 as well as a season concluding Schwab Cup points race titlist who will collect an additional $1 million. Should one of the members of the over-50 set come up just short, they can still collect a bonus purse ranging from $500,000 for runner-up status to $100,000 for fifth place.
The season-long Schwab”s point race is very different from the PGA Tour”s Fed Ex Cup in that there aren”t any playoff-type events leading up to the final tour championship. Also, the season-ending events are not weighted more heavily than those tourneys played earlier in the year. The Schwab lacks the volatility of the Fed Ex Cup playoffs. Season-long consistency as well as overall excellence is what is rewarded. This time around, only the top three linksters in Schwab Cup points, namely Kenny Perry, Bernhard Langer and David Frost are the only golfers remaining who have a chance to win the $1 million bonus. Perry, the frontrunner, has two senior major wins and 10 top 10s this year while Langer has two victories and a very consistent 16 top-10 finishes. Perry and Langer would have to play poorly at Harding for Frost to have any sort of a chance of finishing atop the Schwab standings.
Meanwhile, the top 30 golfers on the senior tour will be at Harding. Along with Langer, there are seven other former major champions in the field including Freddie Couples, Corey Pavin, Jeff Sluman, Tom Lehman, Mark O”Meara, Craig Stadler and Mark Calcavecchia. Other golfers of note include Duffy Waldorf, John Cook, Rocco Mediate, Fred Funk and Jay Haas. Two journeymen golfers with Bay Area ties are at Harding, namely Michael Allen of San Francisco and Esteban Toledo, formerly of Milpitas. Allen, who made the cut as a 52-year-old at last year”s U.S. Open at his home course, the Olympic Club and Toledo, who toiled locally on the Golden State Tour, never won a regular PGA Tour event. However, this year, Toledo has two overtime wins on the Champions Tour and after last weekend”s victory at the Greater Hickory Classic in North Carolina, Allen has a pair of senior wins too.
Of course, there”s always a few of the “Who”s he?” contingent at the Schwab Cup. John Riegger and Chien Soon Lu come immediately to mind as well as Koki Idoki, the winner of the Senior PGA Championship. After winning his first Champions Tour event at the Senior PGA, Idoki stuck around to play in another 10 tourneys and finish the year among the top 30.
The Champions Tour has had to downsize over the past decade due to the recession and world-wide economic factors. In 2001, there were 37 senior tourneys. By 2004 that number had been reduced to 30. This year”s Champions Tour schedule includes 26 events.
The seniors also have some pretty noticeable gaps in their schedule. They play once in January. They play just two tournaments per month during February, March, April, May and July. They play three times during the month of September and October. Only during June and August do the senior compete all four weeks. They happen to play three consecutive majors in a row. The Senior PGA is in late June followed by the Senior U.S. Open and the Senior British Open in July. How”s that pressure pack threesome of tournaments, played one after another? Of course, if you can play well for 30 days, there”s a lot of senior golf history that one can make.
Looking into the future, the Schwab Cup is scheduled for Dove Mountain in Arizona next year. However, it will return to Harding Park in 2015 and then again in 2017.
Finally, the PGA Tour will open its 2014-2015 season next October with the playing of the Frys.com Championship. It will be moved from its traditional site at CordeValle Golf Club just outside San Jose and relocated to North Course at Silverado. The big tour used to play at Silverado during the heyday of the Kaiser and the Anaheuser-Busch, which ran from 1968 through 1980. Former U.S. Open and British Open champion and Napa resident Johnny Miller has done a thorough upgrade of both courses at Silverado. Once again it will be fun to see the tour so close to our backyard.
Meanwhile the seniors are set to tee it up next Thursday at Harding Park. There”s a lot of money and prestige at stake for the top 30 golfers on the Champions Tour. It should make for an interesting conclusion to the 2013 season for the over-50 set.
