 
SEPTEMBER 27, 1999
Those Rich Old Pros
These days, says Irwin, "the golf tour has evolved from a parade of stars of great magnitude" to what he describes as "a highly competitive experience," one that Irwin himself epitomizes. While he projects less personality or flamboyance than Palmer or Nicklaus and evokes less passion from the gallery, he is an intense perfectionist who still competes in regular PGA Tour events and this season stands a good chance of being the senior tour's leading money winner for the third consecutive year. To critics of his lack of pizazz, Irwin responds, "Playing great golf ought to be enough."
At 54, he has withstood the challenge of the tour's freshman 50- and 51-year-olds who have won more than a third of all senior tournaments, and he scoffs at the notion that age 55 is the limit at which a golfer can compete for senior-tour leadership. "That's hogwash," Irwin says. "The age of 55 is now going to be pushed to 56, 57 and 58, because players are more in shape and more attuned to the keen competition."
In both golf and tennis, however, there have been a few concessions to age. Instead of the 72 holes that are standard on the PGA Tour, senior golfers usually play only 54, and they play on courses that are generally gentler and a couple of hundred yards shorter. Golf carts, forbidden on the regular tour, are allowed. The problem in tennis, McEnroe explains, "is that we've still got to run, and they haven't yet come up with a shrunken court." Seniors competition is limited to two sets, however, and if necessary a 10-point tie breaker instead of the regular best out of three.
That tie breaker doesn't sit too well with McEnroe, who jokingly calls the senior-tennis circuit the "dinosaur tour." "I think we should be playing two out of three sets," he says. "This way it's too quick, and most of the fans seem shocked that it's over." Also, he says, it doesn't test the players enough. "There should be at least some kind of fitness test involved."
Otherwise, McEnroe is enjoying the tour, still intent on winning, but more relaxed than ever and more involved with the folks in the stands. "The idea is to get closer to the fan," he explains. Literally closer too, because at each stop the tour erects a small, temporary stadium that enables everyone in the crowd to see the players up close. During the week of a tournament, the participants banter and mingle with the fans and sometimes set up tennis clinics for kids.
"I don't want to go out there and lose," McEnroe insists. Yet he has lost frequently to Connors, who won 12 of the first 14 tour events, and to others in the mid-1990s. But he did manage to put some personal difficulties behind him; he improved his concentration, worked hard at getting back into condition and last year won the No. 1 ranking in senior tennis.
But to McEnroe, winning is no longer everything. "I make more of an effort now to give people their money's worth," something he says (with a note of envy) that Connors does "brilliantly." That money's worth involves entertaining the fans, not only with serious, hotly contested tennis, but with banter and an occasional feigned tantrum, which McEnroe usually throws with a twinkle in his eye, over a line call. "In the old days, they'd fine me if I questioned calls. Now," he quips, "if I don't question line calls, I don't get paid. It's in my contract. I must do it twice a match."
Yet for all the entertainment, nostalgia and excellent play that the senior tours bring to their growing numbers of fans, it's the aging athletes who benefit most, and not just financially. Hale Irwin expressed it best: "The senior tour means that even at our age, we can still pursue the dream."
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