 
SEPTEMBER 27, 1999
Those Rich Old Pros
On the golf and tennis senior tours, the Boys of Autumn are winning acclaim and big bucks
BY LEON JAROFF
The Des Moines country club had never seen anything like it. For a week in July, more than 250,000 Iowans, including Governor Tom Vilsack, came in droves to applaud, cheer and gawk at the stars. Sports Illustrated called the event, the 20th Senior U.S. Open golf tournament, "the biggest thing to hit the state since Pope John Paul II's visit," which happened 20 years earlier. The mere arrival in town of Arnold Palmer, about to turn 70, made headlines in the statewide newspaper, the Des Moines Register.
This hubbub in the heartland, yet another sign that the sports phenomenon known as the senior tour has become a fixture on the American scene, reflects a larger social trend: the greater acceptance of older people performing well--indeed, excellently--in a variety of pursuits. In golf, and more recently in tennis, players who quickened the pulse of sports fans a few decades ago--Palmer, Nicklaus and Trevino, for example, and Connors, McEnroe and Borg--are back on the courses and courts, and back in the news, striving in spirited competition with their peers.
These are more than just flights of nostalgia. On the Senior PGA Tour this year, prize money totaling more than $53 million--a record sum--will be awarded in 45 separate events. A senior golf-tournament win can bring as much as $347,000; two top performers, Hale Irwin, 54, and Gil Morgan, 53, have each earned more than $2 million a year in the past two years.
Though launched in the U.S. only six years ago by Jimmy Connors and sports entrepreneur Ray Benton, the senior-tennis circuit now conducts tournaments around the world. This year 20 events are scheduled at which $3.6 million in prizes will be handed out to players 35 and older. Now called the Worldwide Senior Tennis Circuit, it includes in its impressive galaxy such former stars as Connors, 47; John McEnroe, 40; Bjorn Borg, 43; Guillermo Vilas, 47; John Lloyd, 45; Yannick Noah, 39; Andres Gomez, 39; Henri Leconte, 36; and Mats Wilander, 35.
It is the golfers, the youngest of whom must be at least 50, who give emphasis to the word "senior" in the Senior PGA Tour. Seven players over 60 have won a total of eight tournaments, among them Mike Fetchick, who on his 63rd birthday won the Hilton Head Seniors International, making him the oldest winner ever on the pro circuit.
A close second is Gary Player, who at 62 won last year's Northville Long Island Classic. And two other competitors, Miller Barber and Charlie Sifford, last year accomplished equally difficult feats, shooting their ages or below--Barber shot a 67 two times, and Sifford, 76, shot a 74.
In a culture that still worships youth, it is noteworthy that corporate America sees so much bounty in backing these events. "Senior tennis and golf are important building tools for the relationships we have with our clients," says Tim Schwertfeger, head of the John Nuveen Co., a financial-management company based in Chicago that helped get the tennis circuit going and invests heavily in both sports. Companies are not only sponsoring the senior tournaments, they are also using several of the grizzled icons to hawk their products. Palmer has appeared in Pennzoil and Cooper Tire commercials, Lee Trevino, 59, and Connors for Cadillac. With intimate knowledge of the aches and pains of the aging athlete, Connors has been a natural for Nuprin, and Ray Floyd, 57, for Advil.
Two decades ago, Palmer, along with Barber, 68, and Don January, 69, were still competitive in the regular PGA Tour when they got senior golf off to its rousing start. Even today, though these oldsters play less frequently and finish well down in the field, they are still mobbed by the fans.
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