Peter becomes a Senior at last!

By STEVE TODD, European Tour Press Officer
Peter Senior will live up to his surname when he joins the European Senior Tour ranks this week, becoming the third Australian former European Tour winner to join the over 50s circuit so far this season.
Senior, who turned 50 on July 21, makes his debut in the Cleveland Golf/Srixon Scottish Senior Open at Fairmont St Andrews, where he will join compatriot and fellow rookie Mike Harwood in the field.
Harwood finished third in his second event in the DGM Barbados Open and Senior will be looking for a similarly explosive start to his own Senior Tour career, 30 years after making his European Tour debut in 1979.
“I’ve been waiting for about six or seven years to get started on the Senior Tour so I’m really looking forward to it,” said Senior. “I decided to spend a bit of time with the family and see the kids go through school and I was Chairman of the Australian PGA for the last 12 months. The Senior Tour has now given me the opportunity to go back and out and do what I love again.
“I’ve been playing quite a bit in Australia and I still really enjoy it. I’ve had some good results so I feel competitive. I still practise a lot and enjoy the game. It will be great to see a lot of my old friends such as Peter Mitchell, Glenn Ralph, Stephen Bennett who I knew from the main Tour.”
With countryman Peter Fowler also a recent inductee to the Senior Tour, the rookie trio will bolster an already strong Australian presence on the Senior Tour which includes champions Terry Gale, Stewart Ginn, David Good and Noel Ratcliffe, as well as Dave Merriman, who was runner up in the Ryder Cup Wales Seniors Open.
“There’s a good group of us on the Senior Tour now and it will be great to catch up with them all,” he said. “The Aussies are always a close community and the Senior Tour is a chance for us all to get together again.
“I’d like to do as well as Mike(Harwood) did in his first few events. I’ve not been a rookie for 30 years so it will be nice! I think you have a good chance of winning in your first few years so hopefully I can do that but it will just be nice to compete again.
“The standard on the Senior Tour is really high – you just have to look at Ian Woosnam and Sam Torrance and what Tom Watson did last month.
“I’ve played a lot of golf around the St Andrews area and it is a great place to make my debut on the Senior Tour. I’m just going to take everything as it comes – I’m not setting myself any targets.”
Senior won four times on The European Tour, his first title coming in the 1986 PLM Open before subsequent triumphs in the 1987 Johnnie Walker Monte Carlo Open and the 1990 European Open, with his last victory in the 1992 Benson and Hedges International Open.
He showed he can still compete at the highest level when he finished tied 11th in the Sportsbet Australian Masters last November and tied 14th in the Johnnie Walker Classic in February.
Coincidentally his Senior Tour bow will be at the Torrance course redesigned by former Ryder Cup Captain Torrance, whom the Australian claims helped saved his career.
Senior had been plagued by putting problems until Torrance converted him to the broom handle putter, since when he has been a consistent performer on the greens.

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