By Cary Estes
Scripps Howard News Service
Wednesday, June 28

Twenty years ago, the old guys proved they could play.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the Senior Tour. On June 22, 1980, Don January defeated Mike Souchak by two strokes in Atlantic City, N.J., in the first official Senior Tour tournament.

	Arnold Palmer put the Senior Tour on the map when he joined in 1981.

There were only two Senior Tour events that year, with a total prize money of $225,000. Twenty years later, the Senior Tour consists of 45 tournaments and purses totaling $54 million.

"This tour was started by guys who didn't realize what was going to be out here," said Dave Stockton, a nine-year Senior Tour veteran.

Those guys included January, Bob Goalby, Sam Snead, Gardner Dickinson, Dan Sikes and Julius Boros. They met with then-PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman on Jan. 16, 1980, to discuss the possibility of forming a pro tour for golfers age 55 and older. One week later, the concept was approved by the PGA's Tournament Policy Board.

The idea for such a tour originated a year earlier with the success of the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf, a two-team, best-ball tournament that was televised live by NBC.

The event created quite a commotion in the golf world when the teams (Boros and Roberto De Vicenzo vs. Art Wall and Tommy Bolt) traded birdie after birdie during a well-contested six-hole playoff.

"I couldn't believe the golf I was seeing. It was incredible," said current Senior Tour golfer Jay Sigel, who was in his mid-30s at the time. "I thought it was pretty nifty seeing the old guys play as well as they did."

Apparently, quite a few people felt the same way. Golf course officials and potential sponsors began inquiring about how they could participate in such an event.

"I had a number of comments from people while I was working at NBC," Goalby said. "They wanted to know how they could get an event like that. I must have gone to 100 meetings before we came up with two tournaments."

Still, there was plenty of initial skepticism about the endeavor. The Senior Tour needed something to spark interest.

So the decision was made in 1981 to lower the minimum age to 50. That enabled 51-year-old Arnold Palmer to join the tour.

"When Palmer came on board, I knew it was going to work," Jim Dent said. "That was the key of the Senior Tour."

The schedule was increased to five events in 1981, 11 in '82 and 18 in '83. Prize money rose to a total of more than $3 million in 1983.

With the economy roaring and a golf boom emerging in the mid-1980s, the Senior Tour began to exceed expectations. By 1990, ESPN was televising most of the tournaments, sponsors included such major corporations as R.J. Reynolds and Cadillac, and prize money topped the $10 million mark.

The growth continued throughout the '90s, as players from all over the world began concentrating on improving their game so they could make the Senior Tour. That, in turn, made the quality of play on the tour even better. Though it carried 24 tournaments a year, ESPN recently lost the rights to Senior Tour events to cable news outlet CNBC, which will televise 33 Senior Tour events per year in a four-year contract starting in 2001.

"We heard about the Senior Tour overseas and how it had just taken off so well," South Africa native John Bland said. "You could watch the last round on television at 10 on Sunday evening. It just looked fantastic. That gave the guys interest. They started trying to find out more about it."

And it all originated from a simple idea that golfers still could play well and entertain fans into their 50s and beyond.

"Things happen because people have dreams," said Bruce Summerhays. "Sometimes they go a little higher than those dreams. That's what the Senior Tour is. Nobody could dream that it's where it is today. But it is."