IT WAS A VALIANT effort traipsing across the putting green and driving range in our hot and heavy pursuit of "The Walrus."
Alas, Craig Stadler had vanished from view at Hayfields Country Club yesterday.
Where did he disappear to so fast? Why the rush? Didn't anyone tell "The Walrus" that at this Constellation Energy Classic stop on the Champions Tour, the tone and tenor is supposed to be different from the regular tour?
This is Hunt Valley, for goodness sakes, not Hootie's hallowed golfing grounds of Augusta National.
Who knows? Stadler just turned 50 on June 2. He's new to this Champions Tour gig. Maybe the 13-time PGA Tour victor is still operating in the highly competitive zone populated by the likes of top guns Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Mike Weir, et al., and not in the fan-friendly mode that Champions Tour officials promote.
Then again, there's a certain element of the cutthroat to these old guys, too.
"We play for a lot of money. There's a lot of anxiety, a lot of tension, and sometimes we're not as friendly as the tour would like us to be," Bruce Fleisher said. "It's a business. It's our livelihood, but maybe we should lighten up a little bit."
Tell that to "The Walrus," who won the Ford Senior Players Championship on July 13, four short weeks after joining the Champions Tour, pocketing the second-largest purse ($370,000) on the 32-stop tour.
One thing is apparent about this Champions Tour. It's not all about nostalgia. It's not Yogi Berra or Whitey Ford getting standing ovations at legends games at Yankee Stadium.
It's not John McEnroe riffing through a laugher against Bjorn Borg on the vaguely competitive senior tennis circuit, where the prospect of seeing Borg in those short shorts is a better bet than hourlong tiebreakers.
That's why it would be very wrong to reduce the Champions Tour to that "bunch of old guys playing golf." It's tempting, but wrong, especially when the guys who compete on this "senior tour" profess nothing but gratitude and glee about being the luckiest demographic in all of sports.
Who cares that one year it's Pebble Beach on the bluffs overlooking the foamy Pacific and the next year it's TwinEagles Golf Club in Naples, Fla.?
"You miss a lot of the courses you play over there, but we're playing the golf courses we should play. We've got guys out here who are 65 and 70 years old," said Tom Purtzer, 51.
