Golf Roundup : Leader Couples Threatens to Quit If He Wins

Fred Couples, admitting his attitude isn’t very good and threatening not to play again until 1987 if he wins, shot a 68 Friday and moved into a tie for the second-round lead in the $500,000 Western Open golf tournament at Oakbrook, Ill.

“If I win, I’ll quit for the year. I won’t play another round this year,” Couples said after posting his 138 total for two trips over the Butler National Golf Club course.

He was tied with Bobby Wadkins, who had a second-round 69.

“I’d like to just take a year off right now,” said Couples, 26, hailed as one of golf’s brightest young stars when he won the Tournament Players Championship in 1984.

But he went into a slump--primarily, he suggested, due to a don’t-care attitude--at the end of last year. “And it hasn’t gotten any better,” said Couples, who ranks 96th on this year’s money-winning list.

“In this slump, I’ve played about as inconsistently as I can. I’ll play a few bad holes, then just kind of walk around trying to get the round over.

“My attitude hasn’t been the greatest. I don’t give anywhere near 100% . . .

“Right now, golf is about fifth on my list of priorities, and I don’t know what the other four are,” said Couples, who has missed the cut in eight of 18 starts this season and hasn’t finished higher than 14th.

Gary Hallberg and Tom Purtzer were one stroke off the pace at 139.

Hallberg, one of three tied for the first-round lead, birdied his last two holes for a 71. Purtzer had a 70.

Scott Verplank, who won this title as an amateur last year, shot a 78 and, at 152, failed to qualify for the final two rounds.

Chi Chi Rodriguez, leading money-winner on the PGA Seniors Tour, shot a six-under-par 64 for the first-round lead in the $250,000 Merrill Lynch-Golf Digest Commemorative tournament at the Sleepy Hollow Country Club in Scarborough, N.Y.

Rodriguez, who has earned $219,114 this year, had seven birdies and one bogey over the 6,545-yard course to take a two-stroke edge over Dale Douglass, No. 2 money-winner at $216,156 and winner of three events this year.

Lee Elder, the defending champion in the tournament; Arnold Palmer, who was third last year; Bill Collins, Gene Littler, and Bob Charles were tied for third at 67.

Chris Johnson birdied all the par-5 holes and shot her second straight two-under-par 70 to take the lead with a 140 total at the halfway point of the $300,000 LPGA National Pro-Am at Denver.

Johnson, a two-time winner on the circuit, overcame gusty winds to move one stroke ahead of Amy Alcott and Debbie Massey. Alcott had one of the day’s best rounds, a 69, while Massey, who began the day tied for the lead, had a 73.

Another shot back was Sue Fogleman, who slipped to a 74 after an opening 68 that had tied her with Massey and Judy Dickinson.

Dickinson soared to a 77 and was at 145.

Greg Turner of New Zealand shot a course-record 10-under-par 62 to take a one-stroke lead with a 131 total after two rounds of the $225,000 Scandinavian Enterprise Open at Stockholm.

Turner, 23, a European tour rookie, had an eagle and eight birdies to break by one shot the previous record set by England’s John Morgan.

Tied for second at 132 were Craig Stadler and Ian Baker-Finch of Australia. Stadler, the 1982 U.S. Masters champion and a gallery favorite here, scattered six birdies on his card for another 66. Baker-Finch, the first-round leader, shot a 67.