As you read through this month’s issue of Golf Australia you might spot a recurring theme running through some of our features and columns. That theme is age.
The performance of 59-year-old Tom Watson at the Open Championship was an inspiration to every golfer, no matter what their ability, who thought their best golf was played before they had grey hair, prostate checks and prescriptions for Viagra.
As you will read, some of the biggest names in the game through the 1980s, like Greg Norman and Bernhard Langer, still have something to offer the game and remain competitive beyond just the Senior Tours.
The newest addition to the senior ranks is one of Australia’s favourite golfing sons, Peter Senior, who turned 50 on July 31.
If you asked anyone who has ever been involved with Australian golf at a tournament level to name their top-three nicest and easiest players to get along with, Senior’s name would feature on every list.
I discovered this early in my journalistic career. It was the early days of summer in 1989 and I was the junior reporter working on the sports desk of Sydney’s afternoon newspaper, The Daily Mirror.
As the 8am deadline for the first edition approached, the sports editor shouted “we don’t have a back page lead”. Minutes later, he almost shirt-fronted me and said: “You know about golf, find Peter Senior and get him to say he’ll win again. You’ve got half an hour.”
Four days earlier, Senior had blown the field away at the Australian Open at Kingston Heath. The likes of Norman, Nick Faldo, and the then reigning British Open champion Mark Calcavecchia and US Open champion Curtis Strange were no match for the broomstick-putter wielding Senior. The Queenslander won by seven strokes, just two weeks after winning the Australian PGA by a stroke in front of a class field at Sydney’s Riverside Oaks.
My editor was asking for much at 7.30 in the morning. Find the hottest man in Australian golf on the morning of the first round of the Johnnie Walker Classic and get him to boast that he’ll make it three wins from three starts.
I rang the only hotel in Melbourne I knew pro golfers stayed at – the Hilton. “Can you put me through to Mr Senior’s room please?” I asked the receptionist. I had struck gold and could barely believe my luck as the phone rang in Senior’s room. He answered the phone and it was immediately apparent that I had awoken the champ, who had an afternoon tee time, from his slumber.
I expected to hear the click of a hang up as soon as I identified myself but he could not have been more accommodating. We spoke for 10 or 15 minutes and then I made one last request: “Peter, any chance you can say ‘I’ll win again’? It will make a great headline.”
“No worries, I’ll win again … anything else you need.”
That was 20 years ago and that interview gave me my first back page story. Senior’s generosity of time, and quote, where others would have been dismissive and angered has stayed with me for all these years.
In compiling this column, I called Senior again, this time at a more civilised hour, to discuss his plans now he is eligible to play senior’s golf.
“I’ll play a few events in Australia but I’m going to play more overseas,” he said. In fact, as you read this Senior is playing events on the European Seniors Tour.
“Then I am going to head to the US Champions Tour qualifying in November.”
Senior’s passion for the game has helped him maintain a high quality of ball-striking during the past few years as he approached his 50th birthday.
“I still practice quite a bit and I still enjoy the game a lot, so that makes it so much easier to get out and work on the game,” he said. “If you enjoy what you’re doing it is quite easy.”
I have no doubt Senior will make it through the Champions Tour qualifying and will be a winner in his rookie year. That Tour’s gain will be the loss for several pro-ams and secondary Tour events here in Australia that Senior has supported in playing for many years. In fact, he celebrated his 50th birthday, not with friends and family at home, but by playing a four round pro-am at the Capricorn Resort near Yeppoon. For the record, Senior shot 15-under to finish second.
“I have been a member of the PGA board and it has been a twofold thing,” Senior said. “I like to play the events and meet some of the younger guys who I haven’t met before.
“I like to put in a bit, so do most of the older guys who still support the pro-ams and other events. It’s great for us to play a bit but it is more important to liaise with the sponsors and do your little bit in that area.”
There has been no greater ambassador for Australian golf, here and abroad, than Peter Senior and we wish him all the success in the United States next year.
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