Stewart Can End No-Win Situation : Third Straight 69 Gives Him Two-Stroke Lead Entering Final Round at Pebble Beach

Other than the colorful plus-fours he wears, Payne Stewart’s claim to fame on the PGA Tour is that he doesn’t win tournaments. It doesn’t get him on the cover of magazines, but at least it pays well.

Stewart has the dubious distinction of holding the tour record for the amount earned in a year without winning a tournament, finishing third on the 1986 money list with $535,389.

That’s not including the $300,000 bonus he won for finishing second in the Vantage Cup standings.

Entering this year, Stewart had $1,340,810 in official career earnings, more than $1 million of it since he won his last tournament in 1983. In seven years on the tour, he has won only two tournaments.

But after shooting his third straight 69 Saturday, he’s in good position to win another today in the final round of the AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

His three-round total of 207, nine under par, gives him a two-shot lead over Bernhard Langer, Sandy Lyle and second-round leader Lanny Wadkins.

Six other players are within five shots of the lead as the 69 pros and the 26 pro-am teams surviving the cut gather today at Pebble Beach, which is where Stewart played Saturday after opening at Cypress Point and moving to Spyglass Hill for the second round.

“I told my wife and everybody else I was going to give myself a nice birthday present since I just turned 30,” said Stewart, whose birthday was Friday.

“It’s what I’ve been shooting for all week long. It would make everything better because nobody would be able to ask me when I’m going to win.”

Asked if he was bothered by that question, Stewart said: “Nothing bothers me. I just keep going to the bank.

“I know I’ll get a paycheck tomorrow. I just don’t know how much it’s going to be.”

If he wins, the check will be for $108,000. Second place is worth $64,800.

Some veterans are offended by statments such as Stewart’s, claiming the younger pros are complacent because they don’t have to win to get rich on the modern tour. But perhaps that’s the attitude a player has to develop when he has had so many close calls.

In 29 tournaments last year, Stewart had 16 top-10 finishes. He had three seconds, including two when the final round was rained out. One of those was at this tournament, in which he finished five shots behind Fuzzy Zoeller.

“I could play real good, shoot 69 and get beat by somebody else who shoots 64,” Stewart said. “That’s bad luck.

“But I least I’m learning how not to beat myself. Early last year, I beat myself in a couple of tournaments. Later in the year, I still lost a couple I had a chance to win, but it wasn’t because I beat myself.

“If somebody gets hot and takes off, more power to them.”

Of the 60 pros who played Saturday at Pebble Beach, the only one who shot better than Stewart was Johnny Miller, whose four-under- par 68 moved him to within five shots of the lead.

Stewart and Wadkins, who shot 72 at Pebble Beach, had several explanations for the high scores. For once, the weather couldn’t be blamed. It was a picture-perfect day.

Then again, because the day was so perfect for pictures, almost everyone among the record gallery of 48,815 brought a camera. Virtually without fail, the shutterbugs snapped their pictures as the players were in mid-swing.

“In most tournaments, they take cameras away from spectators at the gate,” Wadkins said. “Here, I think they give them away.”

He said officials would never allow spectators to have cameras at his home tournament, the Greater Greensboro Open.

“They give a six-pack to everyone who comes there,” he said.

Not everyone, of course, wanted to take pictures of Stewart and Wadkins. There was considerably more interest in the celebrity field, which included Jack Lemmon, Telly Savalas, Johnny Mathis and Mayor Clint Eastwood.

Most pros say they enjoy playing with the amateurs, but none enjoy waiting for them.

“These guys are nice, but I don’t like to spend that much time with them,” Wadkins said after a 6-hour 10-minute round Thursday at Cypress Point.

That was the day a Lemmon lemon on the infamous 16th at Cypress Point landed on the edge of a cliff. In order to hit the ball without falling into the ocean, Lemmon arranged a human chain of Eastwood, Greg Norman and Peter Jacobsen to anchor him to the ground.

It made for fast comedy but slow golf.

When Stewart, Wadkins and their two amateur partners reached the 12th tee Saturday at Pebble Beach, two other groups were waiting there.

“I almost fell asleep,” said Stewart, who bogeyed that hole and the next one.

The players also complained about the bumpy greens, which were softened by the rains last week. After Stewart missed a six-footer to bogey 13, Wadkins told him: “That putt looked good in the air.”

If golfers couldn’t complain, many of them wouldn’t have anything to say.

The only person with a real reason to complain is Rex Caldwell’s caddy, Lee Stehle.

Caldwell, the first-round leader with a 67 at Pebble Beach, was still in contention through 17 holes Friday at Cypress Point.

But then he hit his second shot on the par-four No. 18 into the trees to the right. His next shot ricocheted off a branch and hit Stehle in the stomach.

If a ball hits a player or a caddy, that’s a two-stroke penalty. Caldwell wasn’t on the green and already was lying 5.

Still in the trees, he had to hit his next shot left-handed with a wedge. He placed it within 20 feet of the hole, but when he put the wedge back into his bag, it didn’t go all the way in.

Taking a swipe at it with his putter, he instead hit Stehle’s visor, knocking the caddy’s eyeglasses to the ground and bending them.

Caldwell then two-putted for a quadruple-bogey eight and a round of 78.

“Things like that just don’t happen,” said Caldwell, who played so poorly last year that he lost his tour card. He is playing here only because AT&T; invited him.

“I just wanted to bury myself in my room.”

But he earned comeback of the tournament honors Saturday, shooting a five-under par 67 at Spyglass Hill to move back within five shots of the lead.

“I know what you were thinking yesterday,” the good-natured Caldwell said when he met with reporters Saturday.

“You were thinking, ‘He played one good round, but he’s back into his slump.’ It’s quite obvious that’s what everybody thought. You can’t lie to me.”