Columnist Dean Juipe: Aging tour players eye second life

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2000 | 11:19 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

There are exceptions, of course, but as tour-level golfers slip past the age of 45 or so they enter into sort of a vacuum, a purgatory.

Their games decline and they're no longer as competitive as the 25- and 30-year-olds who tend to rule the PGA Tour.

It's a natural progression, or regression, that has little to do with physical conditioning or mental stamina. It's simply an evolutionary process that few, if any, can avoid.

But in professional golf, at least on the men's side, players are entitled to a reprieve, a mulligan. The minute they turn 50, a new gold rush is on.

They become eligible for the Senior Tour.

"I'm definitely looking forward to it," 49-year-old Tom Purtzer said Tuesday, the Senior Tour on his agenda and 14 months away. "I'll miss the guys on this tour, but I've got a lot of friends on the Senior Tour or who are going to be there when I get there."

Purtzer is one of eight long-time pro golfers who will turn 50 in 2001. Six of the eight still play the PGA Tour with some regularity, although Purtzer and Bruce Lietzke are the only ones from that group participating in this week's Invensys Classic at Las Vegas.

Not coincidentally, Purtzer and Lietzke are faring the best of the six who still play, although neither's facts and figures are anywhere near where they once were. Purtzer, for instance, ranks No. 170 on the current PGA money list (with $155,937), although he won five times between 1977 and 1991 and spent the better part of three decades as one of the top players in the world.

How's that for making a guy feel old?

"I don't feel like I'm about to turn 50," Purtzer said. "I'm not sure, mentally, that I am."

But he'll welcome the change of venues when the Senior Tour comes calling next year. So will Lietzke (currently No. 176 on the PGA money list), David Edwards (No. 216), Don Pooley (No. 237), Mark McCumber (No. 245), Fuzzy Zoeller (No. 251) and Roger Maltbie and Bobby Wadkins, neither of whom plays the regular tour any longer.

With the Senior Tour's prize money having escalated to $54.1 million this year, spread across a record 45 events, players who could be referred to as "over the hill" by PGA Tour standards find themselves basking in riches after turning 50. And it's the Senior Tour's whippersnappers who win most of its events.

"I'd never say I expect to go out there and dominate," Purtzer said, "but hopefully I can be successful."

Like everyone, he sees the success of a Bruce Fleisher -- one PGA Tour win in 30 years but 11 wins and $4.8 million in earnings on the Senior Tour in less than two years -- and marvels at what can be done.

"You see that and say, 'Man, how'd that happen?' " Purtzer said, without mentioning Fleisher by name. "But there are also guys who you might think would dominate out there, like (Tom) Watson and (Tom) Kite, who aren't, and guys like Lanny Wadkins who haven't done all that well."

So he's taking nothing for granted.

But when Dec. 5, 2001, rolls around he'll have more than the usual reasons for blowing out the candles. He'll have reason to open a new bank account.