Golf : Fergus, Now a Coach, Doesn’t Miss Rigors of Pro Tour

The end of his true playing life--but more important, the end of the constant travel and practice--occurred for Keith Fergus in Dallas in May.

Fergus, a million-dollar winner on the PGA Tour and 1983 champion of the Bob Hope Desert Classic, shot 78-66 and became one of the happiest men to miss a cut.

“I’ll always remember that 66,” he said the other day. “That was a good one to quit on.”

Fergus had been saying all along that he would spend 10 or 11 years on the tour, then leave. That’s exactly what happened. All the time away from his wife and two children, all the discipline of training--he needs that now the way he used to need a triple bogey.

So he retired. For a while, at least.

Coincidentally, so did Dave Williams, though his retirement is much more definite. He spent 36 years as golf coach at the University of Houston, Fergus’ alma mater. In that time, his teams won 16 National Collegiate Athletic Assn. titles and produced, besides Fergus, such tour players as Fuzzy Zoeller, Fred Couples, Bill Rogers, Bruce Lietzke and Ed Fiori.

Friends encouraged Fergus, living in the Houston suburb of Sugar Land, to go for the job, even though he had never coached anything beyond Little League baseball.

What he did have was a knowledge of the game, an understanding of what the college players are aiming for and, of course, some new-found free time.

The Cougars, who finished 10th at the 1987 NCAA tournament earlier this month at Columbus, Ohio, and have lost only one player to graduation, agreed. A couple of weeks after Williams announced his retirement, the student took over for the teacher.

Maybe not for 36 years, but things have been going pretty well for the first month, and that’s an enthusiastic comeback from golfing burnout in itself.

Telling it like it is.

“If I didn’t need the money, my rear wouldn’t be out here,” Dave Hill, a member of the PGA Seniors Tour, told a United Press International reporter recently. “My golf clubs would be in my barn back home, and that’s where they would stay until somebody bought the property or I was dead.”

Such remarks should come as no surprise. It was Hill, after all, who lost the 1970 U.S. Open to Tony Jacklin and then suggested that building the host Hazeltine Golf Club near Minneapolis had ruined a good piece of farmland.

But Hill, who finished 29th, 13th and 5th in his first three events with the seniors, still can play.

“Dave Hill will win two tournaments before this year is over and he will win a lot more next year,” said Chi Chi Rodriguez, the current money leader. “He knows how to win. If he could beat us 25 years ago, he can beat us now.”

Golf Notes

Four members of the Southern California Junior Golfers Assn. were awarded $1,250 college scholarships June 1 at an awards dinner after the annual Bill Bryant Memorial tournament: Bryan Cannon of Foothill High School in Santa Ana, who is going to Duke; Kim D’Arcy of Dana Hills, going to UC Davis; Lee J. Chester of Granada Hills Kennedy, going to Cal State Northridge; and Deron Johnson of Riverside Poly, going to Stanford. . . . The Skins Game will return to PGA West in La Quinta Nov. 27-29. . . . The eighth annual Amy Alcott tournament benefiting the National Multiple Sclerosis Society will be played Sept. 21 at La Canada Flintridge CC. The scramble event, with a $500 entry fee, is open to men and women. A member of the LPGA tour will play with each foursome. Information: (818) 247-1175.

The first Eric Dickerson “Just Say No To Drugs” celebrity tournament will be played Saturday at Encino GC. Proceeds will benefit Eric Dickerson’s Rangers club for youths 7-12 at L.A. City Recreation and Parks centers throughout the city. Information: (213) 485-4871 or (818) 989-8616.