Notebook

Senior Women Set for 2000
New Tour In Town

During the 1996 U.S. Women's Open at Southern Pines, N.C., a small group of LPGA veterans told then commissioner Jim Putts that they wanted to start a senior tour for players over 40. Ritts wasn't interested. "He didn't want it," says Jan Stephenson. "He kept saying, 'I want to push the 20-year-olds.' "

Rejected but not deterred, and inspired by the success of the men's senior circuit, the women took things into their own hands and formed the Medalist tour. With the support of stars such as Amy Alcott, JoAnne Carner, Nancy Lopez and Patty Sheehan, and sponsors like Arthur Andersen and Marshall Fields, the tour staged seven $300,000, two-day pro-ams over the last two years, and it will have two such events this summer. Now the seniors want to take their tour to the next level, and under the leadership of 27-time LPGA winner Jane Blalock they have transformed the Medalist into the Women's Senior Golf Tour (WSGT), a full-fledged tour that hopes to hold four $500,000 events next year, eight in 2001 and 12 in 2002.

"I sat down with Arnold Palmer, Don January and Miller Barber, the guys who started the men's Senior tour, and asked them if they had to do it all over again, what would they do differently," says Stephenson. "They said, 'We made two mistakes. First, we should have started at the age of 45; most guys just hang out between the ages of 45 and 50 and don't compete. And two, we should have owned it. If we would have used a lot of our friends and called in some favors to get it started, we would have owned it—not the PGA Tour.' "

Two weeks ago Blalock got an oral agreement from PageNet to be the tide sponsor of one 2000 event, probably in Dallas, and she says she's close to signing deals for the other three tournaments. What's more, the Golf Channel has expressed interest in acquiring the tour's TV rights, and the tour has approached the USGA about the creation of a U.S. Senior Women's Open. "If we had waited for the LPGA to get this going, most likely we'd all be dead," says Blalock.

Crucial to the tour's success will be the participation of marquee players. The most significant is the 42-year-old Lopez, who despite having won just once since 1993 still gets more fan mail than any other LPGA player. No problem there. Lopez, one of 45 active players 40 or older, is ready to do her part. "It's important that we have the opportunity of life after the LPGA, like the men have life after the PGA Tour," she says. "We can still play, but we can't keep up week-in and week-out with the younger players."

The only roadblock for the WSGT could be LPGA regulations that stipulate that a player can get only two releases a year to play in tournaments opposite LPGA events and that just four players per week can be released. Blalock says that when the WSGT finalizes its 2000 schedule, she plans to ask new LPGA commissioner Ty Votaw to change the tour's release regulations. "I'm optimistic that we can come together on this issue," says Blalock. "Taking this to court would not be good publicity for us, for women's golf and especially not for the LPGA We need to be working in concert with the LPGA."
—Tom Hanson

Confirmed Rules Violation
Caddie Tells Truth, Gets Fired

The three cardinal rules of cad-dying on the PGA Tour are show up, keep up and shut up. Last week at the MCI Classic in Hilton Head, S.C., Loren Duncan, Jesper Parnevik's looper, broke rule number 3, and he was promptly fired.

After Parnevik completed his second round last Friday, a spectator told Tour rules official Slugger White that he had seen Parnevik use his glove to brush the line of a putt. That would be a violation of Rule 16-1A/1, which prohibits brushing aside or mopping up casual water in the line of a putt and would call for a two-stroke penalty.