San Diego,
THE 1994 US PGA Tour starts here in splendid style on the 7022-yard La
Costa course today with the #1m Mercedes championship.
The event replaces the former Tournament of Champions, but is
essentially the same format -- all the winners of last season's regular
and senior tournaments, with the exception of Nick Price, Bernhard
Langer, Paul Azinger, and Gary Player, competing in two different
competitions for top prizes of #120,000 and #50,000 respectively.
Jack Nicklaus (54), Lee Trevino (54), Ray Floyd (51), Dave Stockton
(52), and Bob Charles (57) have a 207-yard advantage from slightly
forward tees and this, together with their electric caddy carts,
graphite-shafted, big-headed drivers and ''fishing rod putters'' gives
them the appearance of golden oldies from another planet.
Nicklaus, who intends to play more tournaments than usual on the West
Coast in the next two months, is Senior Open champion, and would like
nothing better than to win here with a lower score than the ''flat
bellies'' of the regular Tour, like Greg Norman, Tom Couples, Tom Kite,
Vijay Singh, Brett Ogle, and Davis Love.
US Tour commissioner Deane Beman said that he thought Nicklaus, who
has just opened his hundredth course in New Mexico, could play as well
as ever if he ''devoted himself to it and stayed clear of physical
ailments.''
Beman also welcomed the introduction this season of a European
flavour, with the 1970 US Open champion Tony Jacklin joining the seniors
and Ireland's David Feherty and Sweden's Jesper Parnevik qualifying
creditably in Palm Springs in December.
The first invasion from Europe will take place at the Pebble Beach
National Pro-Am next month, with Jacklin, Peter Baker, Howard Clark, and
Ronan Rafferty in the field.
Beman said that the President's Cup, a new team event between the USA
and the Rest of the World except Europe, based on Ryder Cup lines, and
held in alternate years, could begin this year.
On a lighter note, Bob Hope the British-born comic, stole the
limelight even from the likes of Nicklaus and Norman last week by holing
in one with a No.4-wood at the 140-yard eighth on the Canyon Course in
Palm Springs.
Hope is in his ninety-first year and it was his eighth ''ace.'' Who
says a golfing life cannot begin at 90?
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