DOCTOR OPERATES QUIETLY.

Byline: Dave Shelburne Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - The winner of the 2004 SBC Championship opens his title defense today at Valencia Country Club as one of the best players on the Champions Tour and maybe also its most underrated.

That's just fine with Dr. Gil Morgan, whose victory in last year's SBC Classic was his 23rd on the over-50 tour - the fourth-highest total in the 25-year history of the former Senior PGA Tour. He said he probably is underrated because of his low-key personality, and he calls it a good tradeoff. Bottom line: Morgan enjoys the lack of limelight.

``It may have hurt me from publicity or endorsement situations, things that cater to that type of personality,'' he said. ``But I kind of like my free time at home. To get mobbed by people for autographs or that recognition all the time, whatever that might be, I think that would bother me with my personality type.''

Morgan's achievements - on the PGA Tour and senior tour - make him well-qualified for marquee billing he would just as soon decline but, as defending SBC champion, shares this week with tour superstars Hale Irwin and Craig Stadler and touted senior rookie Curtis Strange.

Irwin, the Tiger Woods of the Champions Tour - with a career-record 42 victories in 10 seasons - said Morgan ``is very much, I think, an underrated and under-appreciated player.''

But not by Irwin.

``I love to see the guy play,'' Irwin said. ``I know if I'm in a tournament and I'm playing around Gil's score, I'm probably playing pretty well. In fact, four or five, six years ago, when Gil and I were having our great years, that was what I was saying - if I can just keep up with Gil, I know I'm going to have a chance.''

Irwin, who won nine times in 1997, when Morgan won six times, believes Morgan never has received the kind of recognition his play should attract.

``An under-the-radar player? Absolutely,'' Irwin said. ``His record since he's been out here is very, very impressive - major championships, multiple wins, a lot of wins. But the guy has sort of flown low. His game flies high, but he sneaks under the radar.''

That's Morgan's flight plan of choice:

``I'm just not very flamboyant, not very outspoken a lot of times, and those kinds of things kind of put you in the background,'' said the soft- spoken, licensed-but-not-practicing Doctor of Optometry, who in 1992 became the first player in U.S. Open history to reach 10-under-par.

In keeping with his career-long low profile, Morgan - who eventually got as low as 12 under in the third round of that national championship at Pebble Beach - was merely flirting with fame. He wound up a footnote as Tom Kite, then 41 years old and in the third year of a six-year stay as the PGA Tour's career money leader, rallied for his first major title.

Morgan showed up at Valencia Country Club this week with 33 career victories in a 32-year touring career that includes seven wins during a 13-year stay on the PGA Tour and nearly $20 million in earnings just on the senior tour.

``It's always fun to come back and defend,'' he said. ``It tells you you played halfway decent last year.''

That's classic Morgan, downplaying his achievements. His ``halfway decent'' season earned him $1,606,453 last year, when he finished third or better three times, finished in the top 10 in 14 of 25 starts and ranked No. 4 on the season money list.

Now 58, Morgan seemingly might attract attention for his pummeling of the traditional age barriers. But as was the case in his eclipse by Kite at the `92 Open, Morgan is playing on a senior tour where Irwin is playing well enough to challenge for a fourth Player of the Year award, at age 60.

So it goes for the senior tour's three-time major champion and quiet man, and so Morgan likes it.

No celebrity, no problem.

Hit the ball, find the ball, take the money. Shhhh.

CAPTION(S):

box

Box:

SBC CLASSIC