Player gets exemption to play in MasterCard
Advertiser Staff
• WHAT: Senior PGA Tour season-opening event • WHEN: From approximately 7:30 a.m. tomorrow and 8:30 a.m. Saturday and Sunday • PRO-AM: Today from 7:30 a.m. • WHERE: Hualalai PGA Tour Resort, Big Island (Par 36-36i72, 7,053 yards) • PURSE: $1.5 million ($258,000 first prize) • FIELD: 33 Senior PGA Tour champions from 2000 and 2001 seasons and major champions from past five years, including defending champion Larry Nelson (9-under 207) • ADMISSION: $10 daily, $20 tournament pass (all week). Children 12-under free with ticket-bearing adult. • TV COVERAGE: (all times HST): PAXiTomorrow 9-11 a.m. CNBCiSaturday and Sunday, 1-3 p.m. • INFORMATION: 1-800-417-2770
World Golf Hall of Fame member Gary Player has accepted a sponsor's exemption to play in this week's MasterCard Championship, at Hualalai Golf Club on the Big Island. The tournament begins tomorrow and kicks off the Senior PGA Tour's 23rd season.
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2002 MasterCard Championship
Player, 66, joins a field of 33 players who have won a senior major within the past five years (1997-2001) or a tournament the past two years (2000-2001). Larry Nelson is the defending champion.
Since turning professional in 1953, Player has won 163 tournaments worldwide, including six senior majors and nine majors during his regular tour career. Player is one of only five golfers to have won the modern-day grand slam (Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Gene Sarazen and Tiger Woods are the others).
Jack Nicklaus was also given an exemption, but will not play because of a back problem.
The purse for the MasterCard Championship is $1.5 million, with the winner collecting $258,000.
Along with Nelson, other former MasterCard champions in the field are John Jacobs (1999), Gil Morgan (1998), Hale Irwin (1997), Jim Colbert (1995), and George Archer, who won in 1990 and 2000.
