As professional golfers prepare to tee it up Friday in the first round of the 29th Hoag Classic at Newport Beach Country Club, we are reminded of the splendor that anything can happen and anyone can win on the PGA Tour Champions, the circuit for players age 50-plus and where second chances come to life. Thirty years ago this week – there were no tournaments in 2017 and 2021 – George Archer shocked the field and won the inaugural Toshiba Senior Classic. (The tournament rebranded to the Hoag Classic in 2019.) Gentleman Archer, a grandfather type when I covered the first Toshiba in 1995 at Mesa Verde Country Club in Costa Mesa, had been suffering from a painful, degenerative hip condition that later required joint-replacement surgery. Archer was considering retirement, and few expected him to be a strong contender to win. There were iconic names in the field such as Lee Trevino, Chi Chi Rodriguez, Tom Weiskopt, Lee Elder and Al Geiberger, while Dave Stockton and Jim Colbert were among the tour’s money leaders. Archer overcame injuries before in his career, but his right hip had been deteriorating steadily for 18 months prior to the Toshiba Classic and he couldn’t play golf unless he loaded up on pain medication. The night before the final round, Archer discussed retirement with his wife, Donna. But on Sunday at Mesa Verde, the 6-foot-6 veteran, who won the 1969 Masters, shot a final-round 64 to win the Toshiba by a stroke. “Golf is a crazy game,” Archer said. “You do things you’re not supposed to do.” In a pulsating finish, Archer came back to pull even with Saturday’s leader, Tom Wargo, and Stockton at seven-under. His putter caught fire on the back nine as Archer birdied 10, 12, 15 and, amazingly, 17 with a 21-foot putt that spurred the 55-year-old and his bad hip into an ecstatic cap-wagging dance. The long putt moved Archer to 11-under, one stroke ahead of Stockton, the two-time defending money leader on tour. When Stockton’s tee shot at 18 found the trees, Archer only needed to make par on the last hole to seal the unlikely triumph. “You’re thinking about retiring and then you have a day like that. What are you going to do?” said Archer, whose drive and approach shot landed to within 15 feet of the cup at 18, where he easily two-putted to finish an improbable comeback. Archer died in 2005 after a 13-month battle with Burkitts Lymphoma, a rare form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was hampered by wrist and back problems for much of his career, but still managed to win a dozen PGA Tour events, including a green jacket at Augusta, Georgia, and 19 more titles on the Champions Tour for golfers 50 and older. With past players like Archer in mind, as well as those playing on a sponsor exemption or as a Monday qualifier, the three-day, 56-hole Hoag Classic is not only Orange County’s only PGA event, but represents everything that is good in the game with the possibility of a magic weekend carpet ride. This year’s Hoag Classic sponsor exemptions are John Daly, Bill Andrade, Boo Weekley and Steve Holmes, a teaching pro and Southern California PGA senior champion. Richard Dunn, a longtime sportswriter, writes the Dunn Deal column regularly for The Orange County Register’s weekly, The Coastal Current North.