Mac the Mysterious Shares Lead With 65

Mac O’Grady, the Dalai Lama of the pro golf tour, shot a 65 for a share of the first-round lead in the MONY Tournament of Champions Wednesday at La Costa, but he’s not altogether sure he knows how he did it.

He talked about memory banks, geometry of the club shaft and “a certain creativity that takes place; it moves itself.” But, in the end, he said his score probably had more to do with his magical aura.

“Just file it under the mystery of the game,” he said.

You want to talk about mysteries? Mark Calcavecchia had to make only a four-foot putt for a birdie on the par-3 11th hole. Three putts later, he walked away with a bogey.

To anyone watching as he missed putts coming and going, the mystery was what this guy was doing among the 29 tournament champions from last year.

He showed them on the par-5 12th, hitting a 3-wood on his second shot within 20 feet of the hole and sinking his eagle putt.

“I just went 541 yards in the same number of strokes it took me to go four feet,” Calcavecchia told his caddy.

“That’s what makes golf such a great game,” his caddy answered.

Thus inspired, Calcavecchia went seven under par on the final seven holes, matching O’Grady’s seven-under-par 65.

Three strokes behind were Corey Pavin and Rick Fehr. Four back is the tournament favorite, Greg Norman.

“I’ll be surprised if Greg Norman isn’t doing the tap dance on Saturday,” O’Grady said. “He’ll get the girl at the end.”

Norman was last year’s leading man, winning more money on three continents than anyone else. He earned a record $653,295 on the PGA Tour. No wonder he could hardly wait to start the new season.

“When I woke up, I was really keen to get going,” he said. “When I got onto the golf course, my caddy said, ‘Hey, slow down. You’re walking too fast.’ He knew I was keyed up.”

Like everyone else, Norman was concerned early Wednesday that the first round would have to be postponed for a day because of the rain, which was further soaking a course that hadn’t begun to recover from Tuesday night’s downpour.

The rain stopped by the time the first group in the seniors’ tournament teed off at 9:45 a.m., but it wasn’t a day to wear white shoes.

This course favors long hitters under normal circumstances, but that was particularly true Wednesday, when the ball hit and stuck.

When the wind off the ocean picked up later in the day, making a bad situation worse, players were hitting into it on Nos. 16, 17 and 18. Those holes are known as “the longest mile.”

“I think they were the longest mile and a half today,” Pavin said.

Of the 29 players, only 10 escaped the three finishing holes without a bogey.

Under the circumstances, the greens were in remarkably good shape. But the players still on the course later in the day could see the heel prints of practically everyone who had gone before them.

Calcavecchia, who qualified by winning the Southwest Golf Classic, said there was a heel print in his line on a 10-foot birdie putt at 17.

“The putt went right up to it, bounced over it and went into the hole,” said Calcavecchia, who is better known for the three times he caddied for Ken Green than for his own game. “When things are going good, they’re going good.”

Several prominent players would subscribe to the converse of that. Andy Bean finished at 82, defending champion Calvin Peete and Tom Kite were at 76 and Fuzzy Zoeller at 75.

O’Grady is the leader in the clubhouse at trying to make sense of the game, but he usually just confuses the issue.

After his only bogey on No. 5 Wednesday, he birdied 7 of the final 13 holes, making putts of 46 feet on 14 and 45 feet on 18.

“There was a little magic in the air today,” he said.

So all O’Grady had to do was let his “magical aura” take over.

“When you get to this level, sometimes you learn the golf club moves you and not vice versa,” he said.

Not many people understand much of what O’Grady has to say, but it presumably will be explained in a book to be published later this year. It will include the results of a research and development project he did with a friend.

“It’s a study of how the brain works for virtuosos on the PGA tour,” he said.

No one questions that O’Grady belongs in that category. Whether he can win this tournament is another matter.

He said it would be like “bringing the ship home, through the hurricane, the cargo and crew intact.”

As for the first round, he said that was “a just-get-your-feet-wet day.”

That’s something everyone who was out there could understand.

Don January, whose last victory on the regular PGA tour was at La Costa, shot a five-under par 67 Wednesday for the first-round lead in the Senior tour’s MONY Tournament of Champions.

January chipped in twice on the back nine, from 40 feet on 10 and 35 feet on 18, and finished his round at La Costa without a bogey.

Three strokes behind January in the 10-man field are Gene Littler and Butch Baird.

The seniors play from shorter tees than the regular pros, who also have a tournament here this week.

“The course played long,” January said. “Par would have been a good round if we were back where the kids were.”