The Open Keeps Its Chen Up in the Rain : Taiwanese Golfer Shoots a 69 to Lead North by 2

Alfred Hitchcock would have loved Tze-Chung Chen.

The only suspense left in a damp and dreary United States Open golf championship at the Oakland Hills Country Club is being provided by the slender young professional from Taiwan.

Even as he threatens to be the first wire-to-wire winner since Tony Jacklin in 1970, Chen has managed to keep fans--and 19 million Taiwanese who he says are rooting for him--on pins and needles as he escapes from one precarious position after another on this legendary course in the affluent suburbs of Detroit.

Chen, playing in a steady rain that became colder and windier as the day neared darkness, shot a one-under-par 69 Saturday to extend his lead to two strokes over former champion Andy North of Madison, Wis. Chen’s 54-hole score of seven-under-par 203 equals the Open record set by George Burns in 1981 at Merion in Pennsylvania.

Burns did not win, however--David Graham did. More suspense for today.

North, who sank a 60-foot putt on the 16th hole for his only birdie, finished at even par 70 for a 205 total. North won the 1978 Open at Cherry Hills near Denver but has not come close to winning anywhere since.

Back at 208 is Dave Barr, a Canadian from British Columbia who didn’t even wear a sweater against the chill. Barr also had a 70.

Rick Fehr, the mini-tour golfer from Seattle, is the only other player under par for three rounds after his 73 for a 209.

Still in the hunt for the 85th U.S. Open crown are a strong group at even-par 210--British Open champion Severiano Ballesteros of Spain (69), Tom Kite (71) and South African Denis Watson (73).

Chen, a nonwinner in two years on the American tour but a recent winner of both the Korean and Japan opens on the Asian tour, seemed to be in trouble on nearly every hole, but somehow he managed to scramble for his par--or even make a birdie out of disaster.

He has led since the second hole Thursday, where he hit a 3-wood shot from the fairway that carried 256 yards and rolled into the cup for the only double-eagle in U.S. Open history. If he holds his lead through today, he will join Walter Hagen (1914), Jim Barnes (1921), Ben Hogan (1953) and Jacklin as winners who have led every round.

For a time Saturday, it appeared that Chen, who is a serious performer on the golf stage but who displays an infectious innocence off it, might run away with the tournament, which is already without most of its would-be celebrities. Chen made two early birdies and led by four shots as first North, and then Jay Haas, fell back. Haas, who started one shot behind Chen, struggled home with a 77.

But to add a little drama to today’s final round, Chen made two bogeys on the back nine to drop closer to North. With Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Craig Stadler, Bernhard Langer, Lee Trevino and Ben Crenshaw already on the sidelines, this tournament needs all the drama it can find.

T.C., as his fellow players call him, began his escape act on the 527-yard, par-five second hole. He drove in the rough--heavier, thicker and wetter than earlier in the week--and had to lay up with his second shot. Still in the heavy grass, he chipped up and sank a three-foot putt for a birdie.

“That was good start,” he said later. “On the next hole, I was lucky. I hit such a bad hook (with a 3-iron) that I had no shot.”

He hooked his 3-iron off the tee on the 199-yard, par-three third hole, and the ball landed in deep grass behind a low-hanging branch. Chen hooded an 8-iron and punched the ball toward the green. It hit in the grass but skipped on to the green and rolled up next to the hole, from where he made his par putt.

“When I saw my ball, all I wanted to do was get it to the green and make two putts and take a bogey,” he said. “I wasn’t even thinking of making a par. I was very lucky.”

From then on, he displayed a variety of recovery shots that produced par. On one hole, he lifted a 7-iron from the rough over a huge weeping willow tree. On another, he nearly holed out with a punched shot from a bunker.

“After the sixth hole, I started hitting my driver good,” he said. “I hope I won’t have such a slow start, like I had yesterday and today, on the first four or five holes tomorrow. It is hard on my nerves.”

On No. 8, one of Oakland Hills’ monster par-fours, 439 yards and uphill, he hit a driver and an 8-iron that left him with a four-foot putt for his second birdie.

The magic disappeared momentarily on the 10th hole when he came up short on the 454-yard par-four and then chipped long for his first bogey. He got the stroke back on the next hole by rolling home a double-break 35-foot putt.

His margin was four strokes until North made an even longer putt on the 16th hole.

“If it didn’t find the hole, it probably would have gone 15 feet by,” North said. “I just lagged it down over the hill with about a three-foot break when it got on track. You get some like that once in a while, and it came at a good time.”

At the 17th hole, with water dripping off his white cap with the flag of Taiwan on the side, Chen made another great shot, a long sand wedge from the bunker that pulled up less than two feet from the hole for a likely par. He missed the putt.

“I could see the water dripping off my cap, but I thought: Why stop, it’s such a short putt I can’t miss. I guess I lost my concentration.”

Chen, however, hopes it rains again today.

“In Taiwan, it rains like this from November to April, and we play all the time,” he said. “If the weather is too perfect tomorrow, someone might shoot 60 or 61. If it is not so perfect, it would be more difficult. I think rain would be nice.”

North was not so pleased with the weather, however.

“It was not much fun out there,” he said. “The conditions are really tough. I am delighted to shoot 70, and I am surprised there are any good scores at all.”

After 24 subpar rounds Friday under ideal conditions, there were only 6 Saturday. Johnny Miller, who brought back fleeting memories of his 63 at Oakmont in 1973, when he made six birdies in the first 13 holes, and former national collegiate champion Scott Simpson had 68s. Chen, Ballesteros, Lanny Wadkins and Joey Sindelar had 69s.

Miller, who teed off early, before the rains blew in from the West, made three straight bogeys once it got wet.

North, who had all but disappeared from the tour because of a variety of physical ailments the past five years, looked like a drowning rat most of the day as he played without a hat or rain gear. He didn’t even have an umbrella.

“I’m not a hat person, so I saw no reason to wear one today,” he said, “and I found that messing around with rain gear threw my rhythm off. Once you get completely wet, what difference does it make anyway.”

North, who turned to golf as a teen-ager when a knee injury prevented him from playing basketball and football, regained his good health after an elbow operation 18 months ago.

He, too, had his moments of suspense at the ninth and 10th holes. On No. 9, he wedged out of the rough and saved par with a 10-foot putt, and on No. 10, he pitched up from 50 yards out and saved another par with an eight-foot putt.

North, who stands 6-4, has a distinctive putting style in which he bends over almost to the knees and grips his putter halfway down the shaft. The putter is a relic from the 1930s that he has had since his junior year at the University of Florida.

“I used to stand up straight, like Raymond Floyd, but I found I couldn’t control the distance on my putts, and that is the most important thing in putting,” he said. “So I started bending over, and it seems to give me more of an idea how hard to hit the ball. Maybe, it’s because I’m down closer to the ground.”

If Chen wins today, he will become the first Far East golfer to win the U. S. Open. It will also net him 4 million N.T. (New Taiwan) dollars. That’s the exchange rate for the $103,000 winner’s purse.

That is roughly equal to Chen’s pre-Open career earnings on the U. S. tour.

THE LEADERS

THIRD ROUND

T.C. Chen 65-69-69--203 Andy North 70-65-70--205 Dave Barr 70-68-70--208 Rick Fehr 69-67-73--209 Tom Kite 69-70-71--210 Denis Watson 72-65-73--210 Seve Ballesteros 71-70-69--210 Payne Stewart 70-70-71--211 Lanny Wadkins 70-72-69--211 Fuzzy Zoeller 71-69-72--212 Raymond Floyd 72-67-73--212 Jay Haas 69-66-77--212