Wargo Loses His Shock Value : Golf: He has since proved that winning the Seniors Championship was no fluke.

When Tom Wargo surprised the golf world by winning the PGA Seniors Championship a year ago, many, including some fellow professionals, considered it a fluke.

It was widely believed that the former club pro, who had earned only $9,000 on the regular PGA Tour, did not belong in the top echelon of the 50-and-over group. After all, he had failed to make it in qualifying school and had failed to win in five previous tournaments.

How things change. Wargo will be one of the favorites in this year’s tournament, starting Thursday on the Champions Course at PGA National Resort & Spa in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., and not merely because he is the defending champion. He has already won a tournament this year, has been in contention in three or four others and is the second-leading senior money winner. No one thinks Wargo doesn’t belong.

In a field that includes Jack Nicklaus, Tradition winner Raymond Floyd, leading money winner Lee Trevino and last year’s player of the year, Dave Stockton, Wargo is one of the chief contenders.

His two-hole playoff victory over Bruce Crampton last year capped a turnaround for the once struggling golf course owner.

Not only did it exempt Wargo from Monday qualifying, but it earned him $110,000, more than twice as much as he had ever earned in any one year before. This year, he already has won nearly a quarter of a million dollars.

Winning all of that money has not changed Wargo, who still owns the course in Centralia, Ill., where he earned enough so that he could give the senior tour a fair shot. Money doesn’t seem that important to him. Last month at Ojai, when he won $1,400 in a pre-tournament shootout, he donated it to charity.

“I hope I haven’t changed,� Wargo said after finishing in a tie for ninth in the Tradition, the first of the senior majors, earlier this month in Scottsdale, Ariz. “I still feel like a club professional. The hoopla and all the notoriety is very nice, but when I’m through out here, I’ll go back to running my golf course. Hopefully, old Tom will be old Tom.�

It seemed only fitting to Wargo that he should have won his first senior event at PGA National.

“It’s my home away from home,� the 51-year-old Michigan native said. “In the mid-’80s, I won my first tournament in the PGA club professional tournament series right there. As I was walking the course during the championship last year, I tried to bring back the days when, though the course had changed a little, there were the same shots to hit. It worked.�

Wargo and Crampton, a 33-time winner on the PGA and senior tour, finished the 72 holes at 275, 13 under par. On the first playoff hole, Wargo had to blast out of a bunker to within four feet and putt for a tie. On the next hole, a par three, Crampton hit a six-iron into the water on the right and it was all over.

Before settling on golf, Wargo tried his hand at many things. He has been a dairy farmer, an ironworker--�I’ve worked at 400 feet, where there’s nothing but air below�--a salmon fisherman and an assembly-line worker.

“I’m still finding it hard to get used to being around the likes of Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus,� he said. “I . . . watched them on TV. I dreamed of playing with them. In the Senior Slam in Mexico, I played with Nicklaus and got to know him a bit. That was nice. I’ve played with Palmer a couple of times and he’s asked me to be his partner in the Legends of Golf in May in Austin, Tex. That will be a thrill.

“But actually, not much has changed. I still stay at Motel 6 and Team Wargo is intact. Irene (his wife) manages the club in Centralia, joining me once a month, and Butch (Williams) is still my caddie and doing a great job.�

One thing has changed, though. The fans know him and seek his autograph. They know now that he can play.