Golf : $1-Million Year Is Possible in ’86

Curtis Strange earned $542,321 playing golf this year, a record for the PGA Tour. Only one other player, Tom Watson, has ever earned more than $500,000 in a single season.

Next year, one player may surpass the million-dollar mark. But it won’t necessarily be because someone is going to roar out of the pack and win six or seven tournaments.

The reason is an influx of $2 million in bonus money from the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., the same people who made it possible for stock car driver Bill Elliott to collect $1 million this year for winning three races on the NASCAR circuit.

Elliott was the beneficiary of a Winston cigarette promotion. The golfers’ windfall will be called the Vantage Cup, named for another of RJR’s cigarettes.

A $500,000 bonus will go to the golfer who accumulates the most points in 40 designated tournaments on the PGA’s 44-event schedule. Awards will range down to $10,000 for 25th place.

Lanny Wadkins, PGA Player of the Year, would have been this year’s Vantage Cup winner had it been in effect. Wadkins won $446,893 and three tournaments, including the Bob Hope Classic and the L.A. Open.

One of the benefits of the financial windfall, besides fattening player bankrolls, is to keep the better players competing in the fall and winter tournaments. Many of them, after winning $300,000 or $400,000 by late summer, take off and play only token schedules late in the year.

“Interest in the Vantage Cup should help us end our season with a bang,” PGA Commissioner Deane Beman said. “The key to encouraging players to enter a wide range of events has been to develop a system based on incentives, rather than forcing them to play in specific events. Clearly, this new concept provides such an incentive.”

Wadkins said it would encourage him to play more in the late-summer and fall tournaments.

“Anything that will create more interest in the tour has to be good,” he said. “It will help everyone involved in the game. What else can you ask for?”

A companion program involving the PGA and R. J. Reynolds, the Nabisco Challenge, will contribute $2 million to local charities of tour events.

Each tournament will “draft” a team of five players Thursday in Dallas, and during the season all the Vantage Cup points they earn will count toward the team’s cumulative total. The winning team at season’s end will earn $500,000 to be contributed to charities supported by the winning team.

In the first round of Thursday’s draft, the Greater Greensboro Open gets first pick. The L.A. Open--one of the few tour events that does not carry a commercial name--has the 14th pick.

Some old events with strange names and their draft choices include the AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, once known as the Crosby, No. 3; the Shearson Lehman Bros. Andy Williams Open, once known as the San Diego, No. 4, and the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, for 25 years just the Hope, No. 27.

Golf Notes Pete Patman of Hillcrest is the new president of the SoCal Golf Assn., succeeding Bob Thompson of Virginia CC. Patman, a Los Angeles native, played golf at USC and has served on the SCGA board since 1972. Other new officers are Steve Miletich of Braemar CC, first vice president; Thomas Hays of Annandale GC, secretary; and James House of Del Rio CC in Brawley, treasurer. Charles (Bud) Betz of San Gabriel CC was added to the board.

Players from 32 nations will tee off Thursday, Nov. 21, in the XXXII World Cup at La Quinta Hotel GC. The U.S. will be represented by Lanny Wadkins and Tom Kite, the same team that took part in the World Cup last year in Spain. Defending champions are Jose-Marie Canizares and Jose Rivero of Spain. The last time the World Cup was held in the U.S. was 1978 in Kauai, Hawaii. A World Cup pro-am will be held Nov. 19-20 at La Quinta Hotel.

The eighth annual Women’s SoCal Golf Assn. Tournament of Champions is set for Thursday and Friday at Rancho Santa Fe GC and Pauma Valley CC. Cindy Scholefield of Los Angeles CC is defending champion. Challengers include Millie Stanley of Wilshire, winner of the Seniors, Southern and 54-hole championship; Anne Quast Sander of Pauma Valley, Mid-Winter Invitational winner; and Judy Murray of California CC, co-medalist in the Southern.

Howard Clark, 69, who learned his golf in Pasadena as a teen-ager, will receive the Herb Graffis Award, the highest award of the National Golf Foundation, during the World Cup competition. Clark, former chairman of American Express, has directed the World Cup since 1963 and is president of the U.S. Seniors Golf Assn. . . . USC’s Sam Randolph received the Fred Haskins Award as 1985’s top collegiate golfer during halftime of the USC-Washington State football game. . . . Starter Joe Gallardo, who works at the Sepulveda courses, shot a course record 33-31--64, eight under par, at Harding. Gallardo also holds the course record for Wilson, the other Griffith Park course, with a 63 in 1972.

Steve Horrell, general manager of the 54-hole Singing Hills complex near San Diego, is the recipient of an outstanding service award by the National Golf Foundation. . . . Enrico Montano of Rancho Park won the all-L.A. junior golf club championship in a playoff with Brady Riggs of Griffith Park and Mike Roberts of Rancho after each shot 73 at Woodley. . . . The SoCal PGA’s pro-lady championship is Monday, Nov. 18, at Irvine Coast. . . . Rex Caldwell has been named pro at the new Santa Maria GC in Baton Rouge, La.

Russ Shipman will conduct the Law Enforcement Golf Classic to benefit the San Dimas-La Verne YMCA on Wednesday at Marshall Canyon GC in San Dimas. Sheriff Sherman Block is scheduled to play. . . . Pro drag racer Butch Leal shot 76 at San Dimas Canyon to win the National Hot Rod Assn. tournament. . . . Western Hills CC men’s champion Rick Mellick and women’s champion Bonnie Holmes are brother and sister.

A number of SoCal players, including former California Amateur champion Duffy Waldorf, Mickey Yokoi and Tom Pernice, all from UCLA; and former SoCal Amateur champion David Hobby of Santa Ana, are among a field of 160 who will play 108 holes Nov. 20-25 at Grenelefe GC in Haines City, Fla., for 50 spots on the 1986 PGA tour. . . . Qualifiers on the LPGA tour include Tammy Wellborn Fredrickson of Annandale, who was co-medalist at the qualifying school; LuLong Hartley Radler of Oceanside, 1978 L.A. City women’s champion; and Loretta Alderete of San Clemente, 1982 Riverside County and state Amateur champion.

The Golden State Golf Tour will play Monday and Tuesday at Desert Princess CC and Wednesday at Chaparral CC, both in Palm Desert, Friday at San Juan Capistrano CC, Nov. 18 at Desert Falls CC and Nov. 19-20 at Cathedral Canyon CC. . . . Other tournaments: the Tommy John Celebrity, today at Industry Hills, for Children’s Hospital; San Pedro Peninsula YMCA fund raiser, Monday Nov. 18 at Rolling Hills CC; the 10th annual Harvey Korman Invitational for the Marianne Frostig Center of Educational Therapy, Nov. 23-24 at the Canyon Hotel in Palm Springs; and the sixth annual Matador Mulligan Classic for Cal State Northridge athletic program, Monday Nov. 25 at Woodland Hills CC.