A nine-year journey from rags to riches

Richard Dunn

There was a time and place when the Toshiba Senior Classic almost

didn’t exist. In fact, there was a Daily Pilot headline that read

“Adios Toshiba” in May 1997.

It was shortly after the third tournament. Bob Murphy had just

spun around Newport Beach County Club for a tour-record nine extra

holes against Jay Sigel, capping an unforgettable playoff victory

with a creeping, spitting, chugging, 80-foot birdie putt on a

two-tiered No. 17 green, which dropped in through the backdoor. It

was golf’s ultimate python putt.

Murphy, a full-blooded Irishman on the day before St. Patrick’s

Day, flipped his straw hat in the air and wiped his forehead in

celebration and relief. Murphy, who hasn’t won since on the tour, and

the nine-hole playoff legend -- the record has since been broken --

threatened to become the final straw of the Toshiba Senior Classic,

which was beaming with success on the golf course, but fighting to

stay alive because of internal struggles between the managing

operator and host site.

Organizers of the Toshiba Senior Classic suffered through three

difficult years before Hoag Hospital stepped in and came to the

rescue, not only saving the Champions Tour event but turning it into

the most philanthropic stop on the 50-and-over senior golf tour.

Less than two months after Murphy’s remarkable putt, the

tournament’s former manager, International Sports and Event

Marketing, was forced out by Newport Beach Country Club ownership.

There was an acrimonious split, leaving the tournament on the verge

of disintegrating. Things went on between the two parties that one

PGA Tour official said had never happened before.

“I don’t think we’ve ever gotten a letter from a tournament site

saying they don’t want to host a golf tournament as long as we have

this manager,” former Senior PGA Tour senior vice president Tim

Crosby once said.

Newport Beach Country Club’s move paid off, following the

tournament’s dark past that included a bankruptcy, two lawsuits and a

public dispute over a $25,000 food and beverage bill. That’s because

Hoag was ready to step into the picture.

Hoag volunteers had made friends with the PGA Tour through the old

Newport Classic Pro-Am and got a call one day asking them to take

over the Toshiba operation. Since Hoag’s first event with Toshiba in

1998, the Champions Tour event has skyrocketed to the top in terms of

charitable giving, becoming the tour’s first stop to join the $1

Million Club for charity in a single event, among other accolades.

But it wasn’t always like that. The event’s first managing

operator, Orange County Sports Association, had the original idea for

the tournament and ran the inaugural Toshiba Senior Classic in 1995

at Mesa Verde Country Club. But the OCSA lost an undisclosed amount

of money and later declared bankruptcy with debts of $1.5 million.

That’s when Bob Neely, president and founder of ISM, entered the

picture. Neely, who originally brought Toshiba in as the title

sponsor for the tour, became the tournament’s executive director and

moved the event to Newport Beach Country Club in 1996. Neely said the

‘96 event lost money and that he dipped into his own wallet to donate

$55,000 to a handful of charities.

Toshiba must have been happy with how the tournament was being

run, because the Japanese computer giant extended its agreement with

Neely for three more years, through the 2000 event.

After the ’97 event, however, following reports in this

publication that no money had been given to charity, things began to

come apart for ISM and its relationships with the tour and Newport

Beach Country Club. The club terminated its agreement with ISM

because of payment defaults and the manager’s clouded tax-exempt

status as a charity.

In June ‘97, six weeks after country club officials ended their

relationship with ISM, the Daily Pilot reported that Hoag Memorial

Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach was set to take over as the

tournament’s manager and lead charity. The hospital, which ran the

Newport Classic Pro-Am for 23 years through its 552 Club, didn’t want

to drop its January pro-am and take on an event with a lot of baggage

and problems. But after a couple of months studying the situation,

Hoag agreed to sign on.

Later that summer, on Aug. 28, Hoag was announced at a press

conference as the Toshiba Senior Classic’s new managing operator and

lead charity. That day, Toshiba announced contributions from the 1997

event to three designated charities totaling $100,000 -- more than

five months after the tournament and with Neely out of the landscape.

Toshiba later filed suit against Neely for fraud, deceit and

mismanagement. Neely filed a countersuit claiming Toshiba broke a

deal and walked out on a contract.

“The bottom line was that (ISM) had not achieved its charitable

status,” Crosby said. “Certainly they were not in a financial

position to continue (as tournament manager) even if they had met the

stipulation.”

About a month after the press conference, Hoag hired Jeff Purser

as the tournament director. Purser, who had turned around a senior

tour event in Grand Rapids, Mich., as tournament director, was

recommended to Hoag by the tour.

In 1998, after running its first senior tour event, Hoag was

awarded the tour’s inaugural Charity of the Year award after raising

more than $700,000 through the Toshiba Senior Classic.

This year, Hoag Hospital has been chosen as the centerpiece of the

Champions Tour’s 30-second public service announcement that will run

prominently during national television programming, including PGA

Tour and Champions Tour telecasts.

The spot will be filmed at Hoag Hospital during Toshiba tournament

week. Gary McCord, who won the event in 1999 and grew up in Orange

County, will star in the PSA. It will highlight the charitable

accomplishments of the Toshiba Senior Classic, with particular focus

on the new Hoag Women’s Pavilion, which has benefited greatly from

tournament proceeds and is now being built on the hospital’s campus.

“The PGA Tour handpicked a few charities that best represent the

philanthropic efforts of the Tour,” Toshiba Senior Classic

Co-Chairman Hank Adler said. “It says a lot that Newport Beach is the

first place they’ve chosen to film on the Champions Tour. The

exposure this will generate for Hoag Hospital and Toshiba is

exceptional.”

The Toshiba Classic is the charitable flag bearer on the tour. In

the past five years, the tournament has raised more than $4.7 million

for over 25 different charities, the most on the Champions Tour. The

Toshiba event was the first Champions Tour stop to raise $1 million

for charity in a single year (2000), and last year became the first

to raise $1 million in three consecutive years.