Top Seniors Expected for RJR Championship 

By ED DUPREE

        The PGA Senior Tour was missing at Clemmons’ Tanglewood Park last year, but it’s back in 2002 under a new name, the RJR Championship.

        The terrorist attacks on America on 9-11 led to the cancellation of all PGA Tour events that week, including the 15th annual Vantage Championship that had been scheduled for Sept. 14-16.

        The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, which was to have sponsored the Vantage for the last time, decided to sponsor the 2002 event this Sept. 13-15 under the RJR Championship name.

        New tournament director Terry Barber, who took over on Nov. 1, said, “We want to make sure we do a great job for Reynolds, being their last year. RJR has done a fabulous job. They’ve invested a lot of money into it and had the name changed over, due to the tobacco settlement. Everything will be done first-class, as it always has been done.”

        Barber, who replaced Mark Freidinger as tournament director, is excited about a strong field for the popular event.

        “Right now I’m expecting most of the players in the top 30 (money list) to participate. We’ve got all the marquee players except for Tom Watson and Fuzzy Zoeller,” she said.

        The field includes leading money winner Hale Irwin, who had won $2,124,206 through the 3M Championship. Irwin is a two-time Vantage champion (1995 and 1997) and shares the tournament record of 195 for 54 holes with Fred Gibson.

        Doug Tewell, Bob Gilder, Bruce Fleisher, Tom Kite, Dana Quigley, Jim Thorpe, Bobby Wadkins, John Jacobs and Allen Doyle ranked second through ninth in money winnings after the 3M Championship, and all will come to Tanglewood having won more than $1 million this season.

        Larry Nelson, who won in a six-hole playoff in 2000, is the defending champion. Other former tourney champs have been Jim Colbert (1991-92, 1996), Al Geiberger (1987), Walter Zembriski (1988), Gary Player (1989), Charles Coody (1990), Lee Trevino (1993), Larry Gilbert (1994), Gil Morgan (1998) and Gibson (1999).

        Players with local ties attending the tournament included Bermuda Run’s Walter Hall, former Greensboro resident Joe Inman and Roxboro native Jim Thorpe.

        The tournament has a purse of $1.6 million with first place paying $240,000.

        The Perry Ellis Pro-Am, which will have NASCAR drivers in the field, opens the schedule on Monday, Sept. 9 with a noon shotgun start. Tuesday will be a practice round, then pro-ams are slated Wednesday and Thursday with early morning starts.

        “We’re excited that (NASCAR driver) Rusty Wallace will be playing with us on Thursday,” said Barber.

        The 54-hole tournament, to be played on Tanglewood’s Championship Course (par-70, 6,600 yards), gets under way on Friday.

        “We will be on television – PAX on Friday from 1 to 3 p.m. and on CNBC live from 2 to 4 on Saturday and Sunday,” pointed out Barber.

        The first pro-am event had been played on Monday in 2001 before the terrorist attacks the next morning. There were, of course, a lot of expenses in planning and setting up for what was to have been the final Vantage.

        “Financially, we were very fortunate,” said Barber. “We had a lot of our vendors work with us on that. We gave money to our charities, but it was according to how many hours they worked. Basically, we took about a $125,000 hit, and that was all, due to the fact that so many people worked with us on that. The Tour did help us with that, too.”

        Tickets for the RJR Championship are available at Tournament Services Fund, Inc., the office of the RJR Championship, located at 2554 Lewisville-Clemmons Road, Suite 306, Clemmons, or by calling 336-766-2400 or 800-222-2204.

        Tickets are priced at $15 for a good-any-day pass or $60 for a weekly pass. For each ticket sold, the RJR Championship will make a $5 donation to The Shriners’ Hospitals.

        Barber’s main point of emphasis is the 2002 tournament, but she is looking ahead.

        “This year is looking great, as far as the tournament goes. We are still working on a company to come in and take over the tournament for 2003. We don’t have anyone committed at this time, but we are working with some companies on that,” she said.