By RANDY YOUNGMAN
Happy 25th anniversary to the Hoag Classic.
The Hoag Classic will celebrate its silver anniversary as a PGA Tour Champions event when Kirk Triplett defends his 2019 title from March 6-8 at Newport Beach Country Club.
Born in 1995 as a Senior PGA Tour event that initially was called the Toshiba Senior Classic and played at Mesa Verde Country Club in Costa Mesa, the tournament moved the next year to Newport Beach Country Club, which has become the longest-running venue on the 50-and-over tour while the tournament has blossomed into its crown jewel.
After 23 years as the Toshiba Classic, Hoag Hospital became the new title sponsor a year ago, when the event was rebranded as the Hoag Classic. The tournament has established itself as one of the tour’s top philanthropic success stories, raising more than $21 million for local charities over the past 21 events under the operation of Hoag Charity Sports.
Not surprisingly, Orange County’s longest-running professional golf tournament has also become known for attracting the best fields and biggest crowds, as well as for dramatic Sunday finishes – including two nine-hole playoffs, one seven-hole playoff and one five-hole playoff.
I have been credentialed for every tournament since its inception, and the memories come flooding back as the 25th edition of the Hoag Classic approaches.
These are my Top 18 Moments and Memories in Toshiba/Hoag Classic history, from my admittedly biased perspective. (They are not ranked in order of significance or chronological order.)
**1998 Toshiba: Hoag to the Rescue.
The 3-year-old tournament was on life-support in the summer of 1997 until the tour reached an agreement with Hoag Hospital to manage the tournament and then Hoag hired Jeff Purser as the tournament’s new executive director.
In its first three years, the tournament had used two management companies and two golf courses and reportedly had finished in the red all three years, with minimal contributions to charity amid a trail of lawsuits. With less than five months to organize the event, the new management team led by Purser and tournament chairman Hank Adler produced a $700,000 donation to the Hoag Hospital Foundation, which subsequently was honored as charity of the year by the then-Senior PGA Tour.
** 1999 Toshiba: McCord Wins First Title
Best-known as a handlebar-mustachioed CBS-TV broadcaster who was winless in 24 years on the PGA Tour, Gary McCord ended his personal title drought in his eighth Champions event (to go along with 375 on the PGA Tour) when he won on the fifth hole of what started as a four-man playoff. On the first hole of the playoff, McCord electrified the gallery by rolling in an 18-foot eagle on the 18th hole – after his close friend John Jacobs had holed a 30-yard chip shot for eagle.
“I wanted to keep going,” McCord quipped as he hoisted the trophy. “The TV was on, and I’m a little bit of a ham, anyway.”
** 2000 Toshiba: Event Tops $1 Million in Proceeds
The 2000 Toshiba Classic became the first senior tour event to raise $1 million for charity in a year, fulfilling a prophecy by tournament chairman Hank Adler. It was the first of many times the Hoag Classic reached that milestone.
“That was Hank’s vision. He wanted me to get to $1 million, and he challenged me to get there,” said Jeff Purser, executive director of Hoag Charity Sports. “And we’ve done that several times now. We’re proud of that heritage; that’s our hallmark.”
** 1997 Toshiba: Murphy-Sigel Playoff
As Bob Murphy and Jay Sigel dueled in the setting sun, it was anything but “sudden death” as the playoff went on and on and on. Finally, the then-longest playoff in Senior PGA Tour history came to a stunning halt on the ninth extra hole – on likely the longest winning putt in tour history – when Murphy rolled an 80-footer from the front of the green, up the steep slope onto the upper tier and into the bottom of the cup.
Not long before, Murphy’s weary wife, Gail, was overheard saying, “Just make a putt, so we can go home.”
Good thing hubby obeyed, because there probably wasn’t enough light to play another hole.
** 2016 Toshiba: Tribute to Arnie
It was fitting that Jay Haas won the 2016 Toshiba during a week in which he flew to Latrobe, Pa., to attend the memorial service for Arnold Palmer, his longtime friend, mentor and fellow Wake Forest alumnus. The tournament chartered a private jet in Orange County, so Haas and several other tour colleagues could attend the service.
Haas said he was “uplifted” by the service and by the on-course tribute at Newport Beach Country Club, where play was suspended for one minute of silence in the opening round, after which all 81 tour pros opened and raised one of Arnie’s trademark four-color Bay Hill umbrellas. Appropriately inspired, Haas, then 62, became the second-oldest winner in Champions history, as well as a two-time Toshiba winner.
** 2010 Toshiba: Couples Comes Home
Fred Couples lived in Newport Beach for several years during the 1980s while he was playing the PGA Tour, but he had never played Newport Beach Country Club until his rookie year on the Champions Tour in 2010. It didn’t show. He shot 66-64-65 to finish at 18-under and win the Toshiba Classic by four strokes, his second victory in his first three Champions events.
“That was a grand finish,” he quipped, referring to clanking his second shot off the grandstand on the final hole, the par-5 18th, and still making birdie.
Record crowds showed up in Newport during Couples’ smashing debut. It wasn’t surprising when he won the Toshiba again in 2014 or when he bought a home in Newport Beach in 2015.
** 1998 Toshiba: 62 with an Asterisk
World Golf Hall of Famer Hale Irwin rocketed up the leaderboard by firing a then-course record 62 in the final round to win by one shot over Hubert Green. Even so, it might not have been possible without the help of a well-placed rake on the signature par-3 17th hole.
Irwin’s 4-iron tee shot hit the green, scooted to the right fringe and began rolling down the grassy bank toward the water when a rake lying outside a bunker stopped its descent. Irwin got up and down for par, then birdied No. 18 to win. “Thank goodness for the rake,” Irwin said afterward. He also won the 2002 Toshiba to become the tournament’s first two-time winner.
** 2011 Toshiba: Trevino’s Final Round
No one knew it at the time, but everyone who was there witnessed the last full-field Champions event of Lee Trevino’s World Golf Hall of Fame career in 2011. They also got to see “Merry Mex,” then 71, go out by bettering his age for the first time with a 1-under 70 in Friday’s first round and then match his age with a 71 on Sunday.
“It’s about time for me to put ’em (his clubs) up,” Trevino said after signing his last scorecard. He finished with 29 PGA Tour wins (including six majors) and 29 Champions wins (including four majors). Trevino also said Newport Beach Country Club was one of his favorite courses on tour.
** 2000 Toshiba: Following ‘The King’
It was nearly 20 years ago, but the mental images are still vivid for everyone in the moving throng shadowing World Golf Hall of Famer Arnold Palmer, then 70, during his only tournament appearance in Newport Beach. It didn’t matter to Arnie’s Army how he played, as he grinded his way to a 3-over 74 in the opening round. Thunderous applause greeted Arnie on every tee and green, and he obliged by smiling, waving and chatting with fans.
When he rolled in a short putt on the 18th hole for his only birdie, a deafening roar erupted from the luxury boxes in the grandstand surrounding the green. And when I approached Palmer for an interview shortly thereafter, he grinned and quipped, “Want me to go down all my birdies?” Priceless.
His 79 in his second and final round – rain shortened the event to 36 holes – also was irrelevant to Arnie’s adoring fans. How many remember that Allen Doyle won the event?
** 2004 Toshiba: Golden Bear, Chi Chi and Purtzer
Watching Tom Purtzer shoot a course-record 60 in the opening round at Newport Beach Country Club, paving the way for his one-shot victory over Morris Hatalsky, is not what most local golf fans will remember about the 2004 Toshiba Senior Classic.
That tournament was more noteworthy as Jack Nicklaus’ first and only tournament appearance and Chi Chi Rodriguez’s last of nine appearances in Newport Beach.
The Golden Bear tied for 36th place at 3-under-par and Chi Chi finished last in the field, but their performances inside the ropes weren’t as memorable as what they said that week.
Nicklaus, on equipment technology and his desire to rein in the golf ball: “You can always control equipment with a golf ball; that’s the whole issue. That’s the only rule you need to control.”
Chi Chi, then 68: “You know what I want to do in a few years? I want to start an 80-and-over tour. We’ll play three times a week, one hole a day – and the winner will be whoever remembers his score.”
** 2011 Toshiba: Price Is Right
In retrospect, World Golf Hall of Famer Nick Price said it was almost as difficult closing out the tournament as it was shooting a record-tying 60 in the opening round. That’s because he learned expectations go up when you go that low.
“It’s quite stressful when you shoot 60 the first day,” Price said after completing his wire-to-wire victory with a final-round 68 to hold off Mark Wiebe by one stroke. “Everyone you see says, ‘You’re going to win, you’re going to win.’ But you’re only one-third of the way through.”
Price’s 60 tied Tom Purtzer’s course record set in 2004 and later matched by Duffy Waldorf in 2015.
** 1995 Toshiba: Inaugural Event
Iconic names such as Trevino, Chi Chi, Weiskopf, Elder and Geiberger played in the inaugural tournament at Mesa Verde Country Club in Costa Mesa, but it was a tall Texan named George Archer who shot a final-round 64 to win the Toshiba Senior Classic by a stroke. Afterward, Archer revealed that he had been considering retirement because of a painful, degenerative hip condition that later required joint-replacement surgery.
The first tournament also was noteworthy because the field included Robert Landers, a cattle farmer from Texas who had practiced in his cowpie-filled pasture to earn his spot on tour in Q School. Wearing tennis shoes and using a mix-matched set of homemade clubs, Landers finished T68 and earned $1,275.
** 2001 Toshiba: Canizares-Morgan Playoff
Patience finally paid off for Spaniard Jose Maria Canizares when he rolled in a curling, 18-foot birdie putt to beat Gil Morgan on the ninth hole of not-so-sudden death, capturing his first and only victory on the senior tour.
Earlier in the playoff, Canizares had lipped out potential winning putts on the first, second, fourth and eighth holes.
Canizares’ clinching putt came on the par-3 17th hole, the same hole where Bob Murphy had outlasted Jay Sigel in a nine-hole playoff in the 1997 Toshiba Senior Classic. Those two playoffs still stand as the second-longest of PGA Tour Champions history. The longest is David Graham’s 10-hole victory over Dave Stockton during the 1998 Royal Caribbean Championship in Key Biscayne, Fla.
** 2008 Toshiba: Langer-Haas Playoff
After a wire-to-wire victory in which he had set the tournament scoring mark of 19-under-par in 2007, Jay Haas came as close as anyone in Toshiba history to repeating as champion in 2008. Haas’s eagle chip on the par-5 18th, the seventh playoff hole, almost ended it, but it hit the hole and spun out.
After Bernhard Langer rolled in his birdie putt, Haas missed a 3-foot birdie putt to extend the playoff.
“Neither one of us deserved to lose this one,” said the victorious Langer.
** 2005 Toshiba: ‘Go, Beer Man!’
That refrain echoed throughout the weekend as Champions Tour rookie Mark Johnson, who had been a beer truck driver for 18 years before turning pro, pulled the biggest upset of the of the year on tour.
Johnson shot 67-63-70 and electrified the gallery on Sunday by holing a lob wedge for eagle on the final hole – the par-5 18th – to win by four shots. He also would have prevailed with a bogey, but finished it off in style as the greenside gallery went absolutely bonkers.
Johnson’s first-place check of $247,500 was more than he had earned in six years on the Golden State, Canadian and Nationwide tours combined. “Unbelievable!” was the word Beer Man used most often that day.
** 2015 Toshiba: Waldorf Flirts with 59
On the last hole of Saturday’s second round, UCLA alumnus Duffy Waldorf faced a 10-foot birdie putt with a chance to become the second PGA Tour Champions player in history to shoot 59. His downhill, left-to-right putt on No. 18 broke right of the cup as it ran out of speed, and Waldorf “settled” for tying the course record at Newport Beach Country Club.
There were more records to come, as Waldorf shot a final-round 66 to win his first Champions Tour title in 73 career starts, beating runner-up Joe Durant by two shots and finishing with a total of 20-under par to break the previous tournament record of 19-under set by Jay Haas in 2007. Waldorf’s 26 birdies also tied a Champions Tour record for a 54-hole event.
“I’m very thankful I could make enough birdies to win it,” Waldorf said afterward.
** 2019 Hoag Classic: New Sponsors Save Tournament
When financial woes forced longtime sponsor Toshiba America, Inc. to withdraw from its contract as title sponsor, the tournament was rebranded as the Hoag Classic, with Konica-Minolta and City National Bank stepping into the void to save the tournament.
And a new tradition began after Kirk Triplett eagled the second hole of a sudden-death playoff against Woody Austin to win the inaugural Hoag Classic.
Shortly after Triplett received the crystal championship trophy, he also slipped on a white Hoag Hospital lab coat bearing a Hoag Classic logo on one side and this inscription on the other side: “2019 Champion Doctor of Golf.”
“Love it!” Dr. Triplett said, smiling and modeling his new wardrobe.
What’s next – a gold-plated stethoscope to the Hoag champion?
** 1996 Toshiba: Homeless to Millionaire
Six months before his 50th birthday, Walt Zembriski was homeless.
“I was living in my car, driving around Florida,” he told me after the opening round of the Toshiba Classic in 1996, the first year the tournament was contested at Newport Beach Country Club. “I slept in my car a lot. I’d park it in front of the golf course, go to sleep and get up at 6 a.m. They’d usually let me in (the clubhouse) to shower and shave.”
Life was tough, but not as bad as his first occupation, as a $400-a-week steelworker, reinforcing beams in skyscrapers high above the streets in New Jersey. After seeing five of his colleagues fall to their deaths, Zembriski quit his job and chased his dream. When he turned 50, he qualified for and joined the senior tour. In 1990, he topped $1 million in career earnings; in 1993, he topped $2 million.
“The senior tour has changed my whole life,” Zembriski said. “Once you’ve walked a six-inch beam 50 floors off the ground, a 3-foot putt doesn’t scare you.”
