2009 Field Includes Icons Gary Player, Lee Trevino and Tom Watson, 2007 Champions Tour Player of the Year and Toshiba Classic champ Jay Haas, Ten Toshiba Classic Champions and Classic Debutantes Nick Price, Ian Woosnam and Hal Sutton
Newport Beach, Calif., Feb. 27, 2009 – To offer some insight as to how personally meaningful Bernhard Langer’s Toshiba Classic victory was in his event debut last year, he cut short his first 2009 Champions Tour title celebration that same evening and delayed his return home to his family in Florida in order to board a red-eye flight to be on hand for 2009 Toshiba Classic Media Day at Newport Beach Country Club.
Whether Langer’s selfless gesture is rewarded in kind with a rekindling of the karma he enjoyed at Newport Beach Country Club last year remains to be seen. He will have to earn the distinction of becoming the Toshiba Classic’s first repeat champion while going against the Champions Tour’s finest field of the year next week.
“It’s great to be back here in Newport Beach. That was a very important victory for me last year; it got me off to a great start to the season and it’s always good to be a defending champion,” Langer said. “It’s great to hear how much the community benefits from it, especially all the charities. When you’ve won 85 tournaments worldwide, you’d like to think you can win anytime you tee it up and that’s the feeling I have on this tour.”
The $1.7 million Toshiba Classic will be televised on Golf Channel (tape delay) on Friday, March 6 from 3:30-5:30 p.m. PT and Saturday and Sunday, March 7-8 from 3:30-6 p.m. PT.
Langer – the Champions Tour’s reigning Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Arnold Palmer Award (money list champion) winner and Byron Nelson Award (low scoring average) winner – is joined in the race to the Toshiba Classic’s $255,000 winner’s check by a field representing 11 World Golf Hall of Famers, 20 PGA TOUR major champions and 26 Champions Tour major champions. All told, the Toshiba Classic field accounts for 455 PGA TOUR titles (53 majors) and 422 Champions Tour titles (57 majors).
Notable golfers competing with Langer for the 2009 Toshiba Classic crown include active golf legends Gary Player, Lee Trevino and Tom Watson, 2008 Charles Schwab Cup champion, 2007 Classic champion and 2008 runner-up Jay Haas, Player of the Year candidates Fred Funk and Loren Roberts, local-to-Orange County favorites Mark O’Meara and John Cook, Hale Irwin, the Champions Tour’s winningest golfer and only two-time Toshiba Classic champ (1998 & 2002), and Toshiba Classic rookies Nick Price, Ian Woosnam and Hal Sutton.
“This reinforces what was already shaping up to be the best field on the Champions Tour this year,” Toshiba Classic Executive Tournament Director Jeff Purser said. “The Toshiba Classic is the ultimate fan event because our golfers are extremely friendly and accessible to posing for photos, signing autographs and cordially chatting with those who like to reminisce with the golfers about their famous victories.”
Daily tickets are $25 at the gate. Season clubhouse badges providing admission to the grounds and clubhouse for practice rounds and the tournament are $100. All tickets, including corporate ticket packages, can be obtained by calling 949-660-1001 or visiting www.ToshibaClassic.com.
The 2009 Toshiba Classic field features 10 Classic champions – Langer, Haas, Irwin, 2006 champ Brad Bryant, 2005 champ Mark “Beerman” Johnson, 2004 champ Tom Purtzer, 2000 champ Allen Doyle, 1999 champ Gary McCord, 1997 champ Bob Murphy and 1996 champ Jim Colbert – and all 2009 Champions Tour winners – Ben Crenshaw and Fuzzy Zoeller (Wendy’s Champions Skins Game), Langer (Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai), Mike Goodes (Allianz Championship) and Loren Roberts (ACE Group Classic).
Langer’s march to one of the most satisfying years in his career began last year at the Toshiba Classic, where he won the first of his three 2008 Champions Tour titles by besting Haas in a Sunday marathon that lasted 25 holes – the last seven through the Toshiba Classic’s fourth playoff in its history – and nearly 6 ½ hours. In doing so, Langer denied Haas of becoming the Toshiba Classic’s first repeat champion with no more than 15 minutes of daylight left to spare. If not for Daylight Savings Time beginning on last year’s concluding Sunday, their playoff would have carried over to a second day.
The Langer-Haas duel at Newport Beach CC wound up being a microcosm of the entire 2008 Champions Tour season as Haas, who authored a tournament-record 19-under 194 at the 2007 Toshiba Classic en route to collecting the 2007 Champions Tour Player of the Year and Arnold Palmer Award, was as close to overtaking Langer to win last year’s Classic as he was to winning the Champions Tour’s season-ending plaudits.
Haas and Langer contested their playoff over Newport Beach Country Club’s three finishing holes: the long par-4 16th, the treacherous par-3 17th and the risk-reward, par-5 18th. Twice, Langer had to get up-and-down for par from the right bunker on 17, a task made more difficult by the back-right Sunday pin. The pair made two full circuits of the playoff holes before returning to the 18th hole for the fourth time that day. Haas finally succumbed after nearly holing out a chip for eagle from behind the 18th green. Then, as the sun dipped over the nearby Pacific Ocean, Haas missed a three-foot birdie putt after Langer sank his 3½ foot birdie moments earlier.
“We just went around and around and around it seemed like,” Langer said. “To me, personally, I think it was great to go head-to-head with one of the dominant players on this tour the last few years. In the end, it was sad that one of us had to lose because we both played well enough to win. I told him at the end, ‘You lost out on this one. I’m sure you’re going to win some other time when we’re head-to-head again and I expect us to go head-to-head on many occasions.’
“There were some spectacular up-and-downs, some putts made and various things that were exciting golf. It was fun to be part of and hopefully, it was fun to watch. Jay and I have a lot of respect for each other. Obviously, I was the new kid on the block, on the tour as you’d call it. I want to make sure I show him I can play this game and that I’m not a walkover. One loose shot and I might have lost the playoff and I might not have been Player of the Year and the leading money winner.”
A 2002 inductee into the World Golf Hall of Fame and the world’s No. 1 player when the Official World Golf Rankings were first introduced, Langer owns two Masters titles (1985 and 1993).
Through the first two months of the new Champions Tour season, not much has changed from last year. Langer won the season-opening event in Hawaii and currently ranks first on the tour’s money list, Charles Schwab Cup and Constellation Energy SPC standings, and scoring average rankings.
Perhaps the chief reason the Toshiba Classic annually attracts the upper echelon of the Champions Tour as well as the legendary golfers who play limited schedules is because it is the unprecedented, unmatched charitable leader of all tournaments on the Champions Tour.
The 2008 Toshiba Classic raised $1 million for Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian and other local Orange County organizations. In its 11-year history, the Toshiba Classic has raised more than $11.1 million for charity, the most on the PGA Champions Tour.
Tournament week at the 6,584-yard, par-71 Newport Beach CC begins with practice rounds Monday and Tuesday, the two-day Toshiba Classic Pro-Am presented by Emulex Wednesday and Thursday and three rounds of competitive play Friday-Sunday.
Additionally, the Toshiba Classic will host the Champions Breakfast presented by The Allergan Foundation with Lee Trevino and the fifth-annual “Shot From the Top” at the Newport Beach Marriott Hotel & Spa at 7 a.m. and 10 a.m., respectively, on Tuesday, March 3; and Wells Fargo Family Day on Saturday, March 7, which includes the Wells Fargo Junior Clinic on the Newport Beach CC driving range following the second round of play. The Wells Fargo Junior Clinic is open to kids 6-12 and will feature selected children from the Special Olympics of Southern California.
During all three rounds (March 6-8) of the Toshiba Classic, the tournament will feature its “Swing for the Green” recycling event in which the Classic will give everyone who brings an item of electronic equipment for recycling will receive two free good-any-day admission tickets. Patrons are encouraged to bring their outdated electronic equipment to the main entrance at the Newport Beach Country Club or the Newport Dunes public parking lot between 8 a.m.-4 p.m. March 6-8. Products that will be accepted include TVs, microwave ovens, refrigerators, smoke detectors, air conditioners and other major household appliances.
The Toshiba Classic
Hoag Hospital Foundation produces the annual Toshiba Classic. During the last 11 years, the Toshiba Classic has raised more than $11.1 million for charity, the most on the Champions Tour. In the PGA Champions Tour’s 29-year history, only nine out of more than 600 tournaments have raised $1 million in net proceeds from an event in a single year. The Toshiba Classic has reached the $1 million mark nine consecutive years out of those 10. Televised to an international audience on Golf Channel, the Toshiba Classic enables millions of viewers to see some of Orange County’s greatest attractions. The tournament generates an estimated $20 million in annual economic impact for the county and state. For more information, please call 949/660-1001 or log onto ToshibaClassic.com.
TOSHIBA CLASSIC FINAL FIELD (As of Feb. 27)
Isao Aoki
Andy Bean
Brad Bryant
Jim Colbert
John Cook
Ben Crenshaw
Allen Doyle
David Eger
Keith Fergus
Vicente Fernandez
Bruce Fleisher
Dan Forsman
Fred Funk
Bob Gilder
Mike Goodes
Wayne Grady
Hubert Green
Ken Green
Jay Haas
Mark Johnson
John Harris
Morris Hatalsky
Scott Hoch
Greg Hopkins
Hale Irwin
John Jacobs
Tom Jenkins
Gene Jones
Tom Kite
Bernhard Langer
Wayne Levi
Bruce Lietzke
Sandy Lyle
Graham Marsh
James Mason
Blaine McCallister
Gary McCord
Mike McCullough
Tom McKnight
Mark McNulty
Larry Mize
Gil Morgan
John Morse
Bob Murphy
Larry Nelson
Lonnie Nielsen
Mark O’Meara
Joe Ozaki
Gary Player
Don Pooley
Nick Price
Tom Purtzer
Dana Quigley
Loren Roberts
Eduardo Romero
Jay Sigel
Tim Simpson
Joey Sindelar
Jeff Sluman
Craig Stadler
Dave Stockton
Bruce Summerhays
Hal Sutton
Steve Thomas
Robert L. Thompson
Jim Thorpe
Lee Trevino
Bruce Vaughan
Bobby Wadkins
Denis Watson
Tom Watson
D. A. Weibring
Mark Wiebe
Ian Woosnam
Fuzzy Zoeller
4 Open Qualifiers (TBD)
Contact:
Toby Zwikel/Brian Robin/Damian Secore
818-462-5599/5610/5614
Jessica Roswell
949/660-1001
