Floyd Plays It Close to the Vest, Leads Masters by One Shot

Raymond Floyd was approaching the first green at Augusta National Saturday when his wife, Maria, whispered to herself, “Play it safe, Ray, play it safe.”

Even if Floyd had been able to hear her, there seemed to be little chance of him heeding her advice.

Telling Raymond Floyd to play it safe is like telling Pete Rose to wait for a walk.

Floyd is a gambling, go-for-broke, go-for-birdie player.

Sure enough, he hit a wedge shot at the pin, the ball settling only eight feet away from the hole. From there, he sank a birdie putt.

So that was the way it was going to be.

Not exactly.

Floyd was as conservative as the Augusta First Baptist Church for the rest of the third round on a windy, overcast day at the Masters. He reverted to form only on No. 13, when he couldn’t resist going for the eagle that put him in the lead for the first time.

When the day ended, he was still there.

Sticking closely to his no-thrills, no-spills game plan, the 1976 Masters champion shot a three-under-par 69 and is four under for the tournament at 212.

One stroke behind is Curtis Strange, who couldn’t be more aptly named considering the way he has played in this tournament.

After an opening-round 80, Strange tied for the low round Friday with a 65, one shot off the course record. He again tied for the low round Saturday with a 68 and has a three-round total of 213.

The other 68 Saturday was shot by West German Bernhard Langer, who is tied at 214 with Spain’s Seve Ballesteros.

Tom Watson, Lee Trevino and Gary Koch are another shot back at 215.

No one else has shot under par through the first three rounds, although seven players are at even par and seven more are at one over.

Entering the final round today, 20 players are within five shots of the leader.

Only five players shot under 70 Saturday as firm greens and capricious winds made it difficult to score well for the second straight day.

Strange is the only player who hasn’t backed down from Augusta National in the second and third rounds, but then, he was forced to play with abandon after his opening-round disaster.

“I’ve been patting myself on the back,” said Strange, the tour’s leading money winner this year.

If he wins, he will be in the record book as the man who had to come the farthest to do it. Craig Stadler won in 1982 after shooting an opening-round 75.

Stadler went the opposite direction Saturday. He shot a 67 Friday to share the second-round lead, but he was nine strokes off that pace in the third round with a 76. Nevertheless, he is still in contention at 216.

So is Payne Stewart, who was up to his pink knickers in trouble most of the day. He also shot a 76 Saturday after having a share of the lead entering the round. He would rather be known for the plus-fours he wears than the ones he shoots.

The other leader Friday was Watson, who made six bogeys and shot a 75 in the third round.

But none of the contenders had a more difficult time Saturday than Gary Hallberg, who had the lead after the first round and was only one shot back after the second round.

Hallberg began the third round as if he were going to run away with the tournament, making birdies on the fifth, seventh and eighth holes to go six under par and take a three-shot lead over the closest challenger, Stadler.

But Hallberg didn’t have a prayer in the Amen Corner--holes 11, 12, 13. He bogeyed all of them to drop three under and lose his lead.

He regained it on No. 15 with a birdie.

One hole later, he was almost off the leader board. The man with the Indiana Jones hat had an adventure on No. 16.

He hit his drive on the par-three hole into the water to the left of the green. That cost him two strokes. Playing a new ball, he hit his next drive into the trap to the right of the green. He played out of the trap with his fourth shot and two-putted for a triple-bogey 6. He also bogeyed No. 17.

“It was like I hit the wall,” he said.

After shooting a three-under-par 33 on the first nine holes, he shot a six-over-par 42 on the back nine.

While Hallberg was becoming old hat, Floyd was trying to keep from doing anything foolish.

Play it safe, Ray, play it safe.

He had two birdies and a bogey on the front nine, eagled No. 13 with a 25-foot putt, which he called a “slam dunk,” birdied No. 16 to go five under par and then bogeyed No. 17.

The 69 wasn’t all that special, but it was good enough. Good enough is all Floyd wants in this tournament.

Since he won his third major tournament--the 1982 PGA--Floyd, 42, has gone winless.

He thought he might break through last week when he had a share of the lead after three rounds at the Greater Greensboro Open. But he shot a 78 in the final round, which included two double bogeys, and tied for 15th.

“My wife asked me after that round if I had any idea what I was trying to accomplish,” Floyd said.

“I told her, ‘No, I didn’t.’ ”

That’s when Maria suggested that Floyd construct a game plan for the Masters, which shouldn’t have been difficult for him considering he had played the tournament 20 times. She told him to stick with the plan come hail or high water or double bogeys.

He wrote the plan on a steno pad Tuesday night and has seldom veered from it.

“I feel like a football coach,” he said.

If he were a football coach, he would say that he is attempting to establish his running game.

“In the past, when I’ve played well, I’ve tried to go at the pins,” he said. “But there are some pins here where shooting at them isn’t intelligent. I’m playing intelligently, not defensively.”

That’s a lesson Watson probably should have learned, considering he is a two-time Masters champion.

But he turned a two-shot lead into a tie by playing too aggressively Friday and came back Saturday in the same swashbuckling frame of mind, despite a mild case of the flu.

He charged his putts, which on these fast greens wasn’t a good idea. He had four three-putt greens.

“I can’t remember the last time I had that many in one round,” he said. “I have to be more careful, use better judgment.”

Another two-time champion was perplexed Saturday. Ballesteros took two shots to get out of traps on two different holes, the first time that has ever happened to him.

He still shot a 71, but whatever chance he had to gain momentum was blown.

Asked later what he planned to do before the final round, Ballesteros said: “I think I’d like to buy a game plan of Raymond Floyd.”