Wednesday, April 22, 1998 | 8:49 a.m.
IT'S AN IDYLLIC existence.
The money is fantastic and it escalates yearly.
The accommodations are superb.
The lifestyle is cozy.
For those who have the game, competing on the PGA Senior Tour is dreamy and comfortable and enriching. It's a place where trouble rarely knocks on the door.
Yet the tour has had its disconcerting moments early in its 1998 season.
One regular participant on the tour, the popular Larry Gilbert, has died, while a retired player who helped found the Senior Tour in 1980, Gardner Dickinson, passed away last week.
There was also the belittling generalization that the Senior Tour was "nothing more than an exhibition" made during Casey Martin's trial vs. the PGA Tour in which he sought the right to ride a cart during tour events.
And continuing to linger is a federal antitrust suit brought by a disgruntled would-be member of the tour, Harry Toscano.
It's difficult to gauge Toscano's chances in the courtroom, yet here's what he's looking to do: Require the Senior Tour to expand its weekly tournament fields from the current 78 to 104. He maintains by limiting the field to 78 the tour is unfairly restricting competition and he's seeking not only a permanent revision to 104, but $36 million in damages.
Toscano unnerved at least four members of the tour last month at the Toshiba Senior Classic in Newport Beach, Calif., when he had court papers served to Don January, Miller Barber, Bob Murphy and Jerry McGee as they reached the first tee. All will eventually be called to testify in his suit if and when it comes to trial, which figures to be early next year. (Earlier this month a federal judge in Florida denied an injunction that would have forced the tour to immediately comply with Toscano's expanded-field request.)
Toscano may be nothing more than a nuisance, yet he is, in effect, looking to take money from the pockets of players who regularly fill out Senior Tour fields although they realistically have no chance to win. He wants those guys shoved aside and either replaced or supplemented by players who may be more competitive although without the name-recognition value of the former stars who continue to make a living on the tour.
The question of whether the Senior Tour is really only a series of "exhibitions" could be raised if not settled during Toscano's suit.
The tour, of course, started as something of an exhibition in concept, with a handful of select players competing in a few events for a good deal of cash. The idea clicked with the public and grew from two events (and $250,000 in prize money) in 1980 to its current 42 events (and $45.1 million total purse).
Most golf fans are delighted with the Senior Tour and, consequently, they're perfectly willing to support tournaments in which their favorite players -- many long removed from their heyday -- take part even if they don't have a prayer of finishing first.
That's part of the tour's appeal.
A guy like Toscano, however, apparently sees only dollar signs. Rightly or wrongly, he wants a piece of that idyllic lifestyle.
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