Water, Water Everywhere . . . : Second Round of Pro-Am Is Postponed as Courses Flooded

The golf tournament being played on the Monterey Peninsula this week may be called the AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, but that was definitely Crosby weather that sent scores soaring Thursday and washed out the second round Friday.

Heavy rain early Friday, following a wet, windy Thursday, flooded the Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill and Cypress Point courses and made them unplayable. Some of the professionals thought the wind had made them unplayable Thursday when 31 shot scores in the 80s.

“The courses are absolutely saturated,” Wade Cagle, PGA tournament supervisor, said in announcing the postponement. “If we can’t play under the rules, we have no choice but to cancel. No. 11 at Spyglass was a river.”

So, for the 10th time since the tournament was moved here in 1947, a round was postponed or canceled by the area’s infamous weather. When the round was called off shortly before 10 a.m., the sun was shining brightly. More rain was forecast, however.

Weather permitting, the 72-hole tournament will end Monday, instead of Sunday. The format and pairings will remain the same, and the cut will be made after the third round Sunday.

The tournament has been played in worse weather. In 1952, still known here as the year of the big blow, rain and wind shortened the tournament to 36 holes. A round was postponed by a half-inch snowfall in 1962, when the temperature dropped to 29 degrees. In 1981, the tournament was shortened to 54 holes.

As Peter Jacobsen said Thursday, “That’s what the Crosby is all about. Excuse me. I mean the AT&T.; I think maybe Bing helped the wind blow a little bit.”

The wind was blowing so hard at Cypress Point Thursday that it almost blew Jack Nicklaus’ putter out of his hands on the 17th hole. “The wind took my putter and kind of kicked it sideways,” he said. “I tried to bring it back straight but couldn’t do it. It was only a three-foot putt, but I missed it.”

Bigger and stronger players today hit golf balls so far that they are making some old courses obsolete. There is little the PGA can do about the size and strength of the players, but Tour Commissioner Deane Beman would like to do something about the golf balls.

The balls, improved greatly by technology, simply go too far today, in his estimation. “There is a question whether this is good for the game, and we’re going to look into that,” Beman said.

The problem is, he added, nobody knows what to do about it. Mark O’Meara suggested, facetiously, that the PGA adopt Jack Nicklaus’ new Cayman golf ball, the one he developed for short courses. You can hit it only about 60 yards.

There is no mention of the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am in the official tournament program. One story begins: “The 1985 edition, call it what you will . . . “ Even the PGA Tour book lists all the past winners of the tournament under the AT&T; name.

A huge cartoon in a store window on the main street in Carmel has a woman saying: “Sorry, we have no listing for the Crosby. Thank you for calling AT&T.;”

AT&T; is having problems, other than the weather, in the promotion of its first golf tournament. Communications from Cypress Point broke down Thursday, and scores were delayed for more than an hour. Hole-by-hole scores were listed for only about one-fourth of the 180 players on the press room scoreboard at the end of the day.

Conditions in the press room were so bad, in fact, that the PGA and members of the media complained to tournament officials.

PGA West in La Quinta will be the site of the next three Skins Games, Don Ohlmeyer, head of the independent production company that stages the event, said Friday. Ohlmeyer, a member of the Bel-Air Country Club, and his partner, professional Bob Eastwood, are tied for the pro-am lead with a nine-under-par 63.

Hal Sutton, on Thursday’s round at Cypress Point: “Playing conditions were horrible; it’s just not fair.”

Sutton is in the A field, a group of top pros and celebrities lumped together so they will play at Pebble Beach when the action is televised today. In Sutton’s view, the pros in that select bunch are at a half-stroke disadvantage because of distractions caused by the large crowds attracted to the celebrities.

Jack Lemmon once lost a shoe in a bunker during one of the peninsula’s notorious storms. “I’m still looking for that sucker,” he said after Thursday’s round. “I look for it every year. Nobody has ever found it.”

Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth said he was playing so poorly that when Charles L. Brown, chairman of the AT&T; board, handed out tee prizes, he got a pay telephone.