Golf : Extra Work Pays Off Big for Peete

Calvin Peete, who has never been successful on the West Coast swing of the PGA Tour, decided this year he was going to change things.

So, instead of enjoying the holidays, he worked hard on his game. Sunday, he saw that work pay off in his eighth tournament victory in three years and his ninth overall.

Peete didn’t join the tour until he was 33. It took him three years to win his first event--the 1979 Greater Milwaukee Open--and ever since he has been one of the most consistent players around.

He won four times in 1982 and three more in 1983. The Texas Open was his only victory of 1984 and with the 1985 tour only two weeks old he already has won once.

Playing steadily if not spectacularly Sunday, Peete shot a three-under-par 68 for a 72-hole score of 14-under-par 270 that won him an $81,000 prize.

Peete shot a pair of 65s in the first two rounds and going into play Saturday he had a five-shot lead. But problems with his contact lens almost blinded him in one eye and he said he was lucky to shoot a 72.

The problem was corrected Saturday night in a visit to a local optometrist and there was no recurrence of the problem Sunday as he made regular use of eye drops.

“I felt very confident once I got the eye problem out of the way,” said the 41-year-old Peete. “I regained my confidence and felt if I could make some putts I could win the tournament.”

He didn’t make all the putts he wanted, but did make enough of them to close out Doug Tewell and Morris Hatalsky, who finished two shots back at 272 and in a tie for second. Hatalsky shot 70 and Tewell a 72 to earn $39,600 each.

Tewell made the turn in one-under 35 while Peete birdied the seventh to turn in 33 and a tie for the lead. Hatalsky trailed by three at that point.

The lead changed hands several times until Peete made a birdie on the 12th and Tewell hit out of bounds on the 14th, eventually winding up with a triple bogey-7. Tewell never recovered from that mistake.

Tewell’s second shot on the 14th hole was ruled out of bounds by PGA Tour official Gordie Glenz.

“I hit a golf shot I don’t think I should have been penalized for,” Tewell said.

Playing from a bunker, he said he “had 139 yards to the hole. I used a 7-iron. If anything, I thought I hit it a little heavy. It bounced over the green.

“I saw the gallery scatter and some fans start to wave. I never saw the ball. Some fans said someone had picked it up. I never had visual confirmation that it was out. But Gordie Glenz ruled that it was out of bounds,” Tewell said.

Said Peete: “Once Doug took that seven, I felt the tournament was mine. I figured no one could beat me and the only way I could lose it was to give it away. I made sure I didn’t do that on the last three holes.”

However, Peete, who holds the statistical designation as golf’s most accurate player, did find himself scrambling and struggling, forced to do some hard work to retain a four-shot lead.

He drove into the gallery but saved par on the 16th.

He missed the green on the 17th, but chipped to six feet and again saved par.

He missed the fairway but made par-5 on the 18th, smiling broadly as he walked to the green, his third shot safely on and holding a two-shot lead.

John Mahaffey shot a 63, two shots short of the course and tournament record, to tie Dan Forsman, Nick Faldo, Don Pooley, Loren Roberts and 1984 Rookie of the Year Corey Pavin with scores of nine-under 275.