Randolph’s Career Is on Course : . . . But Before Turning Pro, He’ll Try to Win Two More Golf Titles for USC

Jack Nicklaus will probably be the yardstick by which golfers of all ages are measured. If he is, then young Sam Randolph of Santa Barbara and USC figures to measure up well.

Nicklaus and Randolph, then a 20-year-old junior in college, played two rounds together last year at the Masters and again in the U.S. Open. Nicklaus shot 72-69-76-73--290, Randolph 72-73-72-75--292.

When Nicklaus won the Masters last month at 46, Randolph, at 21, was low amateur, for the second straight year.

Seventy-two holes, even in a Masters and an Open, can’t project a career, and Nicklaus finished 14 shots ahead of Randolph in the most recent Masters, but he was impressed enough by the slender Trojan to offer a few words of advice.

“I told him to stay in school, get his degree, then get a master’s degree and a Ph.D.,” Nicklaus said. “By that time, I figure when he joins the tour, I’d be all through.”

Randolph has only partially heeded the Golden Bear’s advice. He did stay in school for his senior year--in hopes of winning the NCAA championship for the Trojans and for himself. But that is as far as he will go. Randolph, as the reigning U.S. Amateur champion, will play in the U.S. Open next month as an amateur. But the day after the final round at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club on New York’s Long Island, he will turn professional.

“My plan is to play five tournaments in a row, starting with Atlanta the week after the Open,” Randolph said. “I’m also going to play in the British Open.”

Randolph has an exemption to play in five PGA tournaments, and in those five events he must earn at least $26,000 to continue on the tour. If he succeeds, he can play in all remaining tournaments this year as a temporary tour card-holder. Then, if he is among the top 125 money winners at the end of the season, he will get a permanent card.

“If I don’t make it, then it’s off to the qualifying school,” he said. “I sure don’t want to do that.”

The tour school, a torturous 108-hole test that has denied such quality players as Corey Pavin, Curtis Strange and Scott Simpson in their first attempts, will be played in November at the PGA West course in La Quinta.

First, though, Randolph has two final assignments at USC--the Pacific 10 tournament, which will start today at the Wood Ranch Golf Club in Simi Valley, and the NCAA tournament May 28-31 at Bermuda Run in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Randolph tied for the Pac-10 championship as a freshman and has finished third the last two years. He is the favorite this week but faces a tough challenge from teammate Brian Henninger and Arizona State’s Billy Mayfair and Rich Dietz.

“Wood Ranch is a tough course, one of the toughest we play all season,” Randolph said. “It’s as tough, maybe tougher, than Riviera. I’d say it’s like Riviera, only with a lot of water added. I like it because I feel the tougher the course, the better chance I have.”

Wood Ranch, only a little over a year old, is rated 74.8 by the Southern California Golf Assn., the same as Riviera.

UCLA is the defending champion and has won three of the last four Pac-10 titles, but USC is top-ranked this year. The 72-hole tournament will start with 36 holes today, then run through Wednesday.

Randolph, whose father, Sam Sr., is head professional at the La Cumbre Country Club in Santa Barbara, will have a little extra incentive going into the NCAA.

Last year, he led from the first day and was six shots in front with nine holes to play but was overtaken by Clark Burroughs of Ohio State, who won the first extra hole.

“Can I explain what happened?” Randolph said. “Sure, I hit a couple of bad shots, had a couple of putts lip out and shot 40. Burroughs got down in two out of a bunker twice and shot 34. I had a six-foot putt on No. 18 to win. I hit it good, but it didn’t go in.

“On the first playoff hole, I hit a good tee shot but it caught the corner of a bunker and rolled up under the lip, where I had to chop it out. I lipped the hole with my wedge shot but it rolled about four feet past. I hit my putt too hard and it caught the cup and stayed out.”

Burroughs won with a routine two-putt par.

“I’d been playing great golf,” Randolph said. “I started the last day three in front and shot 34 on the front nine to pick up three more. It looked like I’d win by 10.”

That was the last in a streak of second-place finishes--eight in all--that gave Randolph the reputation of being unable to finish a tournament in front. He had lost both the 1983 and ’84 Southern California Amateurs on the final hole, had lost the 1984 U.S. Amateur to Scott Verplank after holding a substantial lead, had lost the 1984 California Amateur in a playoff, and then let the NCAA get away.

“I just couldn’t make putts when they counted,” he said. “I’m a much better putter today. I would have won at least half of those tournaments if I had putted the way I’m putting now.”

Randolph put the choke theory to rest in last year’s U.S. Amateur when he sidelined two-time champion Jay Sigel in the quarterfinals and then defeated Peter Persons, of Macon, Ga., 1 up, in one of the closest finals in many years.

“I lost in the Amateur (to Verplank) and came back and won it the next year,” Randolph said. “Maybe I can do the same in the NCAA.”

Burroughs was a senior last year, so he won’t be at Bermuda Run to defend his title. But Verplank will be there. It will be the first time in NCAA history that two National Amateur champions will be in the tournament.

Verplank, after gaining national notoriety by winning the Western Open last August against all the pros, has not had a good collegiate year at Oklahoma State. In two meetings, the Southwestern at North Ranch and the John Burns Invitational in Hawaii, Randolph finished ahead of him. In their third tournament, at Guadalajara, both withdrew after suffering Mexican stomach pains.

“I lost 10 pounds and felt half-sick for three more tournaments,” Randolph said. “It took all the strength out of my legs. I felt like I was a piece of Jell-O. It took me a couple of months to get back up to 170 pounds.”

Painful miseries have been a way of life for the 6-foot Randolph the past year. In the U.S. Amateur, he had such severe back pains that he needed chiropractic treatment before two matches.

“It was a sharp pain in my lower back, especially when I bent over. It hurt when I was addressing the ball, and when I leaned over to putt.”

This year the back has not bothered him but, in addition to his Guadalajara problems, he carried a nagging flu around early in the season, played in one tournament with bursitis in his arm, and only last week he sprained an ankle while playing soccer with some buddies.

“You go to college to learn, and I learned some things this year that may help me in the future,” he said, laughing. “I learned not to play soccer and not to go to Mexico.”

Oklahoma State, No. 1-ranked in the country, will be favored in the NCAA, but the Trojans have beaten the Cowboys once and figure they can do it again. In Hawaii, USC won by 17 strokes over Lamar, with Oklahoma State two more behind.

“We had a good week, and they had a bad week,” Randolph said. “But we proved if we can get it together, we can do it.”

The individual Randolph most fears, besides Verplank, is Billy Andrade of Wake Forest, the host school. Andrade, from Bristol, R.I., was Randolph’s teammate in 1981 when they won the Junior World Cup in Ireland. They were the country’s top-ranked juniors that year.

While a senior at Santa Barbara’s San Marcos High School, Randolph played in the Los Angeles Open and was low amateur after making the 36-hole cut in his first meeting with professional golfers.

At USC, he has been an All-American three times and is a cinch for four. Last year, he was the College Player of the Year, a prize he would get again with a strong showing in the NCAA.

Coach Randy Lein calls him the best amateur and college player in the country, suggesting that he could be the best ever at USC.

That covers a lot of territory, including, as it does, Craig Stadler, Al Geiberger and Dave Stockton, all winners of major championships. Randolph, however, with a win in the NCAA, could accomplish something none of the aformentioned did.

Curiously, the best and the worst of Sam Randolph as a collegian has occurred in Fresno.

As a freshman in 1983, he began the final hole of the NCAA tournament at San Joaquin needing a birdie to get into a five-way playoff. He made a bogey, finished two shots back and wound up in eighth place because of the log jam at the top.

“The two Fresno State tournaments I won are the two I remember most at SC,” he said. “Two years ago, at Sunnyside, I birdied the last three holes and shot 65 to win by one.

“Last year at Fort Washington, I shot 67-67-66, the best I ever played, but what I remember best was making a 60-foot curling putt on the last hole to tie us for the team title.

“I remember walking up the fairway on the last hole and the whole team was standing around the green. I said, ‘Should I lag it up, or should I go for it?’ They said we were one behind Fresno and UCLA, so I’d better go for it.

“It was a real snake, one of those things where you hit it and hope, but when it went in the cup, all the guys went crazy.”

Fresno wasn’t so kind this year.

“I was still feeling weak from Mexico, but I was even par for 36 holes, and the team led by five with 18 holes to play. It looked great until the last day. All the strength went out of my legs and I shot 82, and the team collapsed with me.”

Randolph lists this year’s Masters as one of the most exciting occurrences of his career--after he had completed play.

“When I finished, I went to a cottage and watched the last nine holes on TV. Watching what Nicklaus was doing made me as nervous as I’ve ever been. I was about 100 yards away from the 18th green. It was real weird. When Jack would make one of his putts, we’d hear the roar through the windows and see it on TV at the same time.

“Every time I heard a roar, it made me more nervous. It had to be one of the greatest moments in sports.”

Was he rooting for Nicklaus?

“Was there anyone in the world who wasn’t?”

‘You go to college to learn, and I learned some things this year that may help me in the future. . . . I learned not to play soccer and not to go to Mexico.’

--SAM RANDOLPH