The Country Club of Virginia’s
James River Course
CHARLIE NEIBERGALL/ASSOCIATED PRESS; DOMINION CHARITY CLASSIC
B
illy Andrade was 16 years
old when he attended his
first PGA Tour Champions tournament, the
Golf Digest Pro-Am at
Newport Country Club
in his home state of
Rhode Island, in 1980.
He watched some of the legends of the
game—Arnold Palmer, Don January, Sam
Snead, Bob Goalby, Miller Barber—who
started the Senior Tour (50 years of age and
over) in 1980.
“I never imagined that when I turned
50 I would be able to get into this league,”
Andrade, 52, said during a summertime
telephone interview with Virginia Golfer
leading up to the inaugural Dominion
Charity Classic that will be held Nov. 4-6 at
the Country Club of Virginia’s James River
Course in Richmond.
The $2 million Dominion Charity Classic
is the middle event in the three-tournament playoff series that will determine the
winner of the season-long Charles Schwab
Cup competition.
Andrade, who was the American Junior
Golf Association’s Rolex Junior Player of
the Year in 1981, went on to help Wake Forest University win the 1986 NCAA Championship and was a member of the winning
1987 U.S. Walker Cup team.
He turned professional after the Walker
Cup and collected four victories during his
years on the PGA Tour. His position on the
career money list and the multiple victories
gave him exempt status on the Champions
Tour when he turned 50 in January 2014.
vsga.org
“I’ve got to pinch myself. I’ve got to
thank those guys before me. For a lot of us,
[the Champions Tour] is a second lease on
life,” Andrade said. “I totally embrace the
Tour. I’m having so much fun with it. Not
that the regular Tour wasn’t fun, but it was
more survival; it was a lot more pressure,
and I’m just really having fun with this
second go around. I’m just making sure
not to put too much pressure on myself or
try too hard.”
can still go out and perform at a high level
and have chances to win and play on television,” Andrade said. “It’s pretty cool. You
can’t do this in other sports…Even though
we’re old, we can still play some good golf
and shoot some really good scores.”
The playoff series format, similar to the
PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup, is new this year.
“I think it’s very exciting. It enables more
action at the end of the year…It’s going to be
exciting for the fans; it’s going to be exciting
“I’ve got to pinch myself. I’ve got to
thank those guys before me. For a
lot of us, [the Champions Tour] is a
second lease on life”
Andrade won three times on the Champions Tour in 2015, including the traditional
season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship in Scottsdale, Ariz. He shot an
8-under-par 64 in the final round and beat
Bernard Langer, Schwab Cup competition
champion for the second year in a row, in
a playoff.
At the time of interview, Andrade ranked
second on the Champions Tour money list/
Schwab Cup standings although he had not
won this year. He lost in a playoff at the
Allianz Classic in February.
Playing the Champions Tour “means
everything to all of us that are our age. We
for us as players to jockey for position to
have a better chance of winning,” Andrade
said. “You don’t want to get to the Schwab
Cup and it be all over. The past few years
Langer has done that pretty easily. I think
this way it gives more players an opportunity to have a chance to win the whole thing.”
The playoff travel schedule isn’t going to
be easy for the players. The last two regular-season tournaments are in California
and Raleigh, N.C., respectively. There’s a
week off after Raleigh then the first playoff
event is back in California the last week of
October. Richmond is next before the finale
in Arizona.
S E P T E M B E R /O C T O B E R 2 0 16 | V I R G I N I A G O L F E R
19