Hayes: Seniors put on a show we mortals can relate to

IT SOUNDS like a day of fuddy-duddy dowdiness: a golf tournament restricted to a small pool of graybeards played at a cricket club. Break out the hot-water bottles.

But then you see Long John Daly bust a drive 300 yards and you see Bernhard Langer cruising around, as fit as a tennis pro, and you realize these old guys are no joke.

The Philadelphia Cricket Club on Thursday hosted the first round of the Constellation Senior Players Championship, the third of five major championships on the PGA Tour Champions circuit. It was windy and wild, and the course left the field of 81 golfers staggering. Only five finished in red numbers, led by Jay Don Blake at 2 under par.

"It's all you want," said Hall of Famer Tom Watson, whose 1-over finish left him tied for 10th. "That's the absolute best I could do. It's a championship golf course. You could hold any type of championship tournament on this course you'd want, I think."

Jay Don Blake's group teed off in 50-degree weather and stiff winds that limited ball flight, and when he finished around noon at 2-under, he didn't think his clubhouse lead would hold up. Wrong.

Jesper Parnevik was delighted with his 2-over finish . . . and eager to get out of the wind.

"When I packed for this tournament, I didn't pack long johns," said Parnevik, who is Swedish. "It's almost like a U.S. Open. If the USGA was here and set the course up, it would have been unplayable. They would have cut the fairways in, had the rough up. I would have probably shot 90.

"I'm surprised I haven't heard about this place. It's a beautiful place."

Indeed, with world-renowned courses such as Pine Valley and Merion only a short ride away, Cricket is overlooked. The restoration in 2014 eliminated 2,500 trees and revived the challenges of the original A.W. Tillinghast design - hitting shots into open space with nothing to guide your eye.

Rigidly private, Cricket is open this weekend for the public's perusal.

"You're seeing Hall of Fame golfers. The level of play at the top of the leader board will be good golf. You can watch how the pros play different shots," said Jay Haas, who was 6-over, but didn't take it personally. "It's a beautiful place to watch golf, and the course is magnificent."

So is the connection between spectator and athlete. A Senior NBA or an over-50 baseball league - those wouldn't work. The PGA Tour Champions works because of the connection; because the golfers are, at this stage, so human. They might play elegantly and powerfully, but they do not act quite as regally as they once did.

They have endured more of life. They have dealt with divorce and disease and death. Golf has become a privilege, not a birthright. Every round is relished as though it might be their last, because, well, it very well might be.

Where else can you watch a guy such as Rocco Mediate, who looks as if he should be sitting in a lawn chair in front of his home drinking Schlitz out of a mason jar and yelling across the trailer park at his neighbor, John Daly.

Daly, a rookie on the tour, finished 6 over, but his score has little to do with his appeal. He was near the top in driving distance and led the categories of gallery (and waist) size, pictures taken, cigarettes smoked and loudness of pants. He delighted his fans by outdriving flat-bellied playing partners Brad Faxon and Parnevik and took less time to hit his shot than they took to pull their club. On No. 18, Faxon was sauntering down the fairway but had to stop short because Daly, who hit a rare layup out of a fairway bunker earlier in the hole, was firing his just-don't-care pitch. Also, Daly refused to speak to the press after the round.

So, yeah, same John Daly.

Again, people come to see him for his personality, not his putting. That's true of many of the tour's characters.

There's Miguel Angel Jimenez, the Spanish bon vivant; his nickname is "The Mechanic" (he once worked in a shop) but his aura is anything but proletariat. There's Colin Montgomerie, who turned his frown upside-down; Mrs. Doubtfire has become Mr. Congeniality. There's Langer, The Terminator; he just keeps on coming.

Senior golf might be about shorter courses, lower roughs and slower greens (though the greens at Cricket terrorized them on Thursday), but it also is about feuds forgotten and friendships grown. These are the guys you fell asleep with on Sunday afternoons as they played whatever tournament on low-def TV. This was the soundtrack to your naps.

These days, on this course, they play high-def, dynamic golf, with lots of birdies and, in conditions like Thursday's, many more bogeys. The 25-mph crosswind on the par-3 eighth, the hardest hole, was a four-club headwind on No. 4, the second-hardest, and that made for delightful frustration.

Blake said he crushed his drive on No. 5 and it traveled only 235.

Who can't identify with that?

@inkstainedretch