CALVIN PEETE : Hot Off Win, L.A. Is Next : Vardon Winner Claims Riviera Not His Course

Calvin Peete doesn’t expect much from himself this week in the Los Angeles Open, which may serve as a word of warning for the rest of the touring professionals at Riviera.

He didn’t expect much last week at Phoenix, either, but he wound up winning $81,000 after playing four rounds of golf at 14 strokes under par--despite a painful eye irritation that nearly caused him to withdraw Saturday.

“I normally never play this well so early in the year, so winning at Phoenix was a little unexpected.” Peete said. He has scored his eight previous tour victories after the tour left California and headed east.

Riviera, where the $400,000 L.A. Open will start Thursday, is too long and too demanding for his game, Peete said. “I have never done well there, and I expect I’ll have to stay at my peak just to finish in the top 10. It definitely favors the long hitter, especially a high-ball hitter.

“I’m a low-ball hitter and the ball doesn’t roll at Riviera. You’ve got to carry the greens or chip off that Kikuyu (grass), and I’ve always had problems with my chipping there. The greens are so small it puts added premium on long irons and chipping, and the chipping calls for a different technique than anywhere else.”

If Riviera is not a course he can play, why is he entered?

“For one, Riviera is a great course, with a great history, and being in Los Angeles, a lot of black golf fans come out to watch me. I am sure that in the L.A. Open, I have more blacks in my gallery than any other place I play. They really support me here, so I feel like I should play.”

Peete, 41, is the most successful black golfer in history, but he hates to see his name listed among the black pioneers of the game.

“I’m a Johnny-come-lately among black golfers,” he said. “The real pioneers were Bill Spiller and Teddy Rhodes. They’re the two blacks who got it started. Charlie Sifford was the first to get in the PGA, but I’m sure he was helped by the earlier play of Spiller and Rhodes, just as Pete Brown and Lee Elder were helped by Charlie, and I was helped along by the progress made by all of them. For me, it’s been a cakewalk. I’m no pioneer, but I hope I can serve as an inspiration to more black youths to take up the game.”

Peete will get in his final practice round on the 6,946-yard, par-71 course today during the pro-am, but playing with three amateur partners is not quite the same as playing a competitive round with Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Craig Stadler or Lanny Wadkins--all of whom will be at Riviera today.

“The pro-am is a public relations day,” Peete said. “It’s a time to relax, to learn something from your businessmen partners and perhaps gain a contact that will help in your career. You get a little idea about the way the course is set up, but mostly it’s a day when you help the amateurs, giving them the distances, lining up putts, things like that.”

Peete is confident--and thankful--that the painful eye problem he had at Phoenix will not bother him in the shaded canyons of Riviera.

“The doctors said they think it may have been caused by the glare of the sunshine, like snow blindness. It was a very bright day Saturday, and it seemed like I was squinting into the sun all afternoon. I’ve had that problem before, although never as extreme, when we played in Arizona or Palm Springs.”

Peete had a five-stroke lead after rounds of 65-65 and was looking forward to Saturday’s third round.

“I felt fine when I woke up, but about 30 minutes before my tee time, my (right) eye began to water. The more I rubbed it, the more it became irritated. Before I finished, it felt like someone was sticking little needles in it. If I had not been in the position I was in the tournament, I would have probably withdrawn. I changed my contact lens, but that didn’t help. I was worried about perhaps having my eye permanently injured.”

With tears streaming from his eye, Peete struggled through a stretch of four straight bogeys on the way to a 72. He lost his lead to Doug Tewell, who moved two strokes ahead with a six-under par 65.

“The doctor gave me some medicine Saturday night before I went to bed. It sort of froze the eye and when I woke up, it ached a little but in a couple of hours it felt fine and I never had any more problems,” Peete said.

He shot a final-round 68, winning by two shots over Tewell and Morris Hatalsky.

“Looking at that last round, I was exactly where I prefer to be going into the last 18,” he said. “I would rather be a couple of shots back than a couple ahead. When you’re ahead, you can’t help but play defensive golf, and that’s not the way to win. It’s not a comfortable feeling to play defensively.

“Of course, your opponents in the last round can dictate how you play the round. I think that Tewell and Hatalsky, not being as accustomed as I am to being in contention in the final threesome, may have been intimidated by my hitting the ball so straight.

“That way, they had the feeling they had to beat me, that I would not beat myself, and that could have put more pressure on them. They’re not as experienced and until you’ve done it a few times, there’s nothing in golf like knowing how to win, how to react in those last few holes on Sunday.”

With one tournament win in his pocket, Peete has two objectives this year: To finish among the top 10 in money winnings--he was 25th last year after being No. 4 in both 1982 and 1983--and to make the Ryder Cup team. He’d also like to win the Vardon Trophy again for the low scoring average for the year.

“To me, the Vardon Trophy is what the game of golf is all about,” he said. “We’re all out there trying to be the best, and the way to measure the best is by the score you shoot. I consider the Vardon to be the most prestigious award in the game, and winning it last year was just the icing on my career cake. I get a thrill every time I think about my name alongside that elite group of players.”

Past Vardon winners include Raymond Floyd, Tom Kite, Lee Trevino, Watson and Arnold Palmer. Surprisingly, Nicklaus has never won it, but only because he has never played the required number of rounds.

Peete credits playing a round with Nicklaus in the 1982 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach with his breakthrough to becoming a winning player.

“Playing with him did more for me that hitting all the golf balls I ever hit on the range,” Peete said. “Watching him, I learned all about what you have to do to win a golf tournament, how to manage a course when the pressure is at its heaviest, how to conduct yourself. I owe him a lot, just having been in his threesome. I was a totally different player after that round.”

Before the ’82 Open, Peete had won only one tournament, the 1979 Greater Milwaukee Open. Three weeks after playing with Nicklaus, he won at Milwaukee again and followed that with victories in the Anheuser-Busch Classic, the BC Open and the Pensacola Open.

Nicklaus didn’t win that Open, but it took a miraculous chip shot by Watson on the 71st hole to beat him.

Peete named Lanny Wadkins, Fuzzy Zoeller and Trevino as the three players he’d most like to play with in a friendly betting game. Asked why not Nicklaus, he smiled and said, “I would say Nicklaus, but he’s not a good player to gamble with.”