Phoenix Open Golf : An Allergy Slows Peete; Tewell 2 Up

While Calvin Peete fell victim to an apparent allergy attack and a rash of bogeys, Doug Tewell found the round he was looking for Saturday.

Tewell came from six shots back and moved into the third-round lead in the $450,000 Phoenix Open golf tournament.

“All I thought about was shooting that low round I felt I had in me,” said Tewell, who bounced back from a late double-bogey and compiled a third-round 65, six under par.

A birdie-birdie-birdie finish gave the 35-year-old pro a 200 total for three trips over the 6,726-yard Phoenix Country Club course and a two-shot advantage going into today’s final round of the chase for an $81,000 first prize.

“I feel confident,” said Tewell, whose only two tour wins came in the 1980 season. “I feel like I’ve got an even lower round in me. I’d like to see myself go out and shoot that low, perfect round.”

Peete, a runaway leader through the first two rounds, simply would like to be able to see.

Peete, the 1984 Vardon Trophy winner with the tour’s low-stroke average, had missed only one fairway over the first two rounds. But with tears streaming down his face and stopping occasionally to wipe his eyes, he let his tee shots begin to stray. He wound up with four bogeys--his first of the tournament--and had to work for a round of one-over-par 72 that left him in a tie for second place with Morris Hatalsky at 202.

Hatalsky, playing in the same group with Tewell, salvaged a 66 with a scrambling back nine.

Peete, who told tournament officials he was having difficulty with his contact lenses, wiped his eyes repeatedly during the round, declined to be interviewed afterwards and sought the services of an optometrist.

Isao Aoki of Japan moved up with a 67 in the warm sunshine and was at 203. Ed Fiori, who shot a 65, was next at 205.

The group at 206 included Johnny Miller, Chip Beck, T.C. Chen, Corey Pavin, George Burns, Bob Eastwood and Tim Norris. Chen had a third-round 66. Miller, Beck and Pavin shot 67s. Burns had a 68. Eastwood and Norris each had a 71.

Peete made his first two bogeys on the third and fourth holes but bounced back with a string of three birdies.

That rally enabled him to retain two strokes of his lead at the turn in the face of Tewell’s challenging 32.

They matched birdies on the 10th.

Peete, playing one hole behind Tewell, appeared to have a little breathing room when the latter made a double-bogey on the 15th, hitting into the water.

“I stepped back from the shot,” he said. “I couldn’t pick out the pin against the gallery. When I finally located it, I just made a totally bad swing.”

But Peete, his eyes tearing, three-putted for a bogey on the same hole moments later, then drove into trouble, hit into a bunker and bogeyed the 16th.

At the same time, Tewell reeled off a decisive string of three birdies. The first two, on the 16th and 17th, came on 15-foot putts. The last, after the national television cameras had ended their coverage for the day, came on a little pitch and a three-foot putt.