Bob Charles strikes gold on U.S. seniors circuit

Press, 19 December 1986, Page 38

Bob Charles strikes gold on U.S. seniors circuit

New Zealand’s Bob Charles has become one of the “truly golden oldies” of golf, having earned more than $600,000 already this year on the seniors circuit in the United States without winning a single tournament, according to Britain’s “Guardian” newspaper.

A sports writer, David Davies, claims the 5U5320.000 ($640,000) won by Charles in 1986 is “more than he has made in his life, encompassing over 20 years on the European tour.” Christmas this year arrived for Charles on March 14 when the New Zealand lefthander turned 50 and became entitled to join the United States seniors tour, wrote Davies. Six days later, he was playing in the Vintage Invitational in Palm Springs, California, where he finished ninth and won SUS9OOO ($18,000).

“If candy is devoured by kids, then senior golfers feed voraciously on pension schemes dressed up as professional. tournaments. The senior's tour (next year worth about $2O million) is one of the most spectacularly successful ways of marrying athletic effort 4 at an advanced age

with the punter’s desire to see their old favourites, together with the desire of those favourites to ensure that their olden days are indeed golden.”

Davies said that Charles was one of the most consistent and, with Gary Player, the fittest, players of the tour. At one stage in the year he had compiled 26 rounds of par or better, a feat no-one else had come close to. “He has turned out to be a highly successful money-making machine, one that envisages at least another five years at the same level. If he does, he will have made around SUS2 million ($4 million), a windfall if ever there was one.”

Charles, at present playing the New Zealand and Australia circuit, is quoted as saying he had thought he would be retired by now on his farm in New Zealand, looking after the deer the

goats he breeds. “Instead, he is in some kind of financial fairyland, where, by finishing second in one tournament, he made the bigfest cheque of his life, U 550,000 ($100,000) or nearly 10 times what he won for his (British) Open Championship in 1963,” wrote Davies. Charles reportedly told Davies he was not too surprised at his success. “In 1984, Peter Thomson won nine events on the senior tour and I just could not believe that. In the last 10 years I have beaten Peter in practice rounds and friendlies and tournaments close to 90 per cent of the time. He is just not that good, not that long any more, and yet he was winning.

“So for the last few years in Europe I have just been keeping a competitive edge, doing the press-ups and waiting for 50 to arrive,” Charles is quoted as saying.