Golf / Randy Harvey : O’Grady Says Feud With Beaman Over

Amid the holiday season, peace is at hand between Mac O’Grady and PGA Commissioner Deane Beman.

Before playing a round last week at La Costa Resort Hotel, site of the MONY Tournament of Champions Jan. 7-10, O’Grady met with reporters, who asked him a number of leading questions.

Leading where?

If O’Grady had answered in the manner to which reporters have become accustomed, the questions presumably would have led to another suspension. After being fined $5,000 and suspended for six weeks last year for making remarks that PGA officials deemed harmful to the tour, O’Grady is on probation.

But he resisted. It didn’t appear as if he had to bite his tongue.

“The commissioner made some valid points,” O’Grady said. “I made some points I also felt were valid. He may have felt it was unhealthy, some of the things I brought out into the public domain. Perhaps it was. But I do know it’s a closed book now. I hope we can go through this year without any controversy.”

Asked if would change anything if he had it to do over again, he said: “There are some things I should not have said. Some things I said should have been more polished and not so primitive. I wish I would have said things more professionally. But I had to say some things to get attention.”

Having done that, he said he believed the result was positive.

He described his relationship with Beman now as “give and take.”

“I’ve had many talks with the commissioner since I dropped the law suit,” he said. “I think everybody is trying to work for the good of the game. Everybody.”

Although we may be hearing less from O’Grady in the future, we could be seeing more of him.

With four years on the tour behind him, he said he is finally ready to market himself.

“In my first four years, I signed no contracts,” he said. “I just wanted to play the game. I really love playing the game. But after four years of staying neutral, my basic residency program is over with. I feel I can go into private practice now and still play my best golf. Next year, I’m going to sign some contracts.”

To that end, he has begun an association with Gunther Harz, a European promoter who has had success marketing professional tennis players.

O’Grady said he doesn’t feel his image will deter potential sponsors, who generally prefer more conservative spokesmen.

“I certainly hope it doesn’t because I’m not a detriment to the sport,” he said. “If people get to know me, they will realize that I really love the game of golf. They’ll know I’m dedicated to the sport and the profession. I like people. I’m like Lee Trevino in a lot of ways. I’m just not as witty.”

Even when O’Grady is not controversial, he is provocative.

He said one project he and Harz have discussed is the start of a second professional tour.

Asked if he would like to be the commissioner, O’Grady said: “I hear Jack Nicklaus is considering retiring. Let him take the job.”

Seriously, he said: “I would love to be the commissioner of golf somewhere down the line, but not professional golf. Commissioner of junior golf is as high as I want to go. I enjoy the spontaneity and vitality of the juniors. It would make me feel like Ponce de Leon.”

When the press conference ended, O’Grady went to the driving range to give an ambidextrous exhibition, hitting balls both right-handed, which is natural for him, and left-handed.

Since he didn’t have left-handed clubs, he was hitting with the back side of his driver. No one could tell the difference.

“It’s really tough to do,” he said. “You have to use a different side of the brain.”

At the Mesquite Golf and Country Club near Palm Springs, O’Grady recently shot a course record 62 right-handed. He then turned around and shot a 69 left-handed.

“Next year, if I go into the final round of a tournament leading by four or five strokes, I’m going to play left-handed,” he said.

On the maturing process professional golfers go through during their early years on the tour, O’Grady compared them to the turtles on the South American island of Galapagos.

“After the turtles are born, their journey across the land to the water takes them two or three years,” he said. “Once they make it to the water, without the sea gulls eating them, a whole new world opens up to them.”

It’s hard to imagine O’Grady ever in a shell.

Golf Notes

For $10,000, anyone can enter the first annual St. Thomas mini-tour. It’s a series of 10 two-day tournaments on the Caribbean island, beginning May 11 and ending June 12. Each tournament has a purse of $70,000, $10,000 of which goes to the winner. Everyone who pays the entrance fee qualifies for each tournament. No one is cut. For further information, call Jon Douglas at (818) 884-0404. . . . Andy Thuney of the Hacienda Golf Club has been reelected president of the Southern California Section of the PGA of America. . . . The Southern Section’s player of the year is David Barber, head pro at Bakersfield Country Club.

When Australia won the Dunhill Cup in Scotland, Greg Norman became the first golfer to win more than $1 million in one year. Now the ball he used in that tournament is being auctioned by Spalding Sports Worldwide and the Nancy Reagan Drug Abuse Fund, the beneficiary of the bidding. George S. Pillsbury of the Pillsbury Company has made the first bid, announced only as four figures. Reggie Jackson also has bid. The winner gets to play a round with Norman. . . . Norman is far ahead in the Sony world golf rankings, based on players’ performances throughout the world and sanctioned by the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, Scotland. Only five of the top 10 are Americans.

Norman also was named world player of the year by Golf Digest. Bob Tway was runner-up. As comeback players of the year, Golf Digest selected Bob Murphy and Sandra Palmer. Nobody asked me, but my choice for the PGA’s comeback award would have been Ben Crenshaw. Most improved professionals, according to the magazine, were Dan Pohl and Jane Geddes. . . . The new president of the Professional Golfers’ Assn. is J.R. Carpenter, veteran coach at the University of Southern Mississippi. Elected vice president was Pat Reilly of Pasadena. . . . The MCI Long Distance competition for 1986 was won by Joey Sindelar, who had a 14-yard advantage over Tway entering the final event last week. When Tway hit his drive 283 yards, Sindelar needed 270 to win. He hit one 278 yards.