Golf / Grahame L. Jones : Dream Pairings in Tournaments Don’t Just Happen--They’re Planned

On paper, they look like dream threesomes, the sort fans would go out of their way to see play together.

For instance, how about this group: Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson? Or this one: Hubert Green, Lanny Wadkins and Lee Trevino?

These are two of the so-called hand-picked threesomes that organizers of the 69th PGA Championship have put together for the Thursday start at the PGA National Championship course at Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

For those who might wonder how it is that certain players wind up playing together in the early rounds of a major tournament such as this, here’s the answer:

--According to PGA spokesman Jim Warters, it’s done intentionally, the idea being “to create a little more excitement in the first two rounds” and also to spread the fans around the course a little bit, something that is helped by this year’s new two-tee start.

This time around, Warters said, picking some of the threesomes was easy.

“Trevino beat Wadkins down the stretch for the ’84 PGA Championship and then lost to Green in the stretch in the ’85 PGA Championship, so there was that angle,” he said.

“Of course, Nicklaus, Palmer and Watson was pretty natural. Watson and Palmer not having won one (PGA Championship) plus Watson is 37, Nicklaus is 47 and Palmer is 57, so you’re kind of representing the last three decades of golf.

“And (Larry) Mize, (Nick) Faldo and (Scott) Simpson is self-evident.”

The three won their first major titles this year in the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open, respectively.

In all, Warters said, eight threesomes were specially selected. The rest of the field was grouped by a blind draw.

There are statistics and then there are statistics. In the latter category, the latest issue of Golf Course Management magazine might have come up with the most bizarre set of numbers yet.

In an article detailing wear and tear on golf courses, the magazine quoted a study done four years ago by Charles Cogan, then greens chairman of the Irvine Coast (now Newport Beach) CC. Here’s what Cogan had to say:

“The average golf shoe has 12 spikes, 24 per golfer. I have found that golfers take an average of 26 full steps (52 paces) per green. Therefore, each golfer leaves 26 x 24 (624) spike marks on each green. On 18 greens he leaves 11,232 spike marks. If there are 200 rounds of golf played a day, there are 2,246,400 spike marks left behind.

“If this goes on for 30 days, you have 67,392,000 spike marks per month. And now you wonder why you can’t sink a putt?”

Cogan’s theory would appear to have no holes in it.

Pat Rielly, the head pro at Annandale Golf Course in Pasadena for the last 15 years and chairman of this week’s PGA Championship, says the PGA National Championship course will offer a tough but fair test to the golfers.

“From the standpoint of fairways and rough, the golf course will be in the best condition it can be in for this time of year,” Rielly said, adding that the greens should prove firm and very fast.

“This time of year,” of course, is August, a time when the heat and humidity in Florida combine to make for the least pleasant conditions.

As the August issue of Golf Illustrated put it when told that conditions were “not that bad”:

“Not that bad . . . if you’re a mosquito or an alligator, if you don’t mind changing in and out of a rain suit, playing with wet clubs and out of squirty lies. This could be the Bataan Death March of major golf championships. The heat index was 102 degrees last Aug. 6-9, the dates of this year’s PGA.”

Hubert Green, telling Ohio Golfer magazine about some of the dumb questions he’s asked by reporters and fans, rated this as one of the least intelligent:

“I had a hole in one during the first round of the Westchester Classic one year,” Green said. “A writer approached me after the second round and asked me if I had any holes in one. When I told him I didn’t, he said, ‘What happened? What went wrong?’ ”

There was an odd footnote to Laura Davies’ victory in the U.S. Women’s Open at the 6,284-yard Plainfield Country Club in New Jersey.

It was the third year in a row a player has registered her first American pro victory in the Open. Kathy Baker did it in 1985, and Jane Geddes last year.

The PGA’s Senior Tour has added yet another tournament with the announcement that the Aetna Life & Casualty Co. will sponsor the $300,000 Aetna Challenge at The Club at Pelican Bay in Naples, Fla., next Feb. 24-28.

The tournament is the 36th Senior event scheduled for 1988. The tour started with two events in 1980. This year there are 35 tournaments offering $12.8 million in prize money.

Golf Notes Free junior golf lessons for the next five Thursdays will be conducted by John Welker at the Los Angeles Royal Vista GC in Walnut, beginning at 3 p.m. The lessons are open to youths age 8 through high school. Additional information can be obtained by calling (818) 965-1634. . . . Recent mention here of Helen Knight’s remarkable string of 30 consecutive championships at El Caballero CC in Tarzana prompted Bob Harrison, professional at Brentwood CC, to remind us of Frances Hirsh’s equally astonishing feat of having recently won her 23rd title there and her 40th club championship overall. . . . Bruce Appeldorn successfully defended his club championship at Penmar Links GC in Venice. . . . The California Interscholastic Federation’s Southern Section will hold a fund-raising tournament Aug. 27 at California CC in Whittier. The tournament and dinner, to benefit high school athletics, will include such guests as Wes Parker, Pat Haden, Bob Seagren, Jamaal Wilkes and Ann Meyers.

After two years of having its event conclude on Saturday, the MONY Tournament of Champions will revert to a Sunday finish in 1988, according to tournament chairman Allard Roen. Next year’s event will be played Jan. 14-17 at La Costa CC. . . . Rancho Santa Fe GC will be the site where 36 prominent amateurs will compete Tuesday for 13 places at the regional qualifying for the USGA’s Women’s Amateur. Among the 36 competitors will be Dina Ammaccapane, Dana Lofland and Kim Saiki, each of whom played in the recent U.S. Women’s Open. . . . Upcoming televised events, all on ABC, include the third and fourth rounds of the PGA Championship at the PGA National GC at Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., next Saturday and Sunday; the third and fourth rounds of the Beatrice Western Open at the Butler National GC in Oak Brook, Ill., Aug. 22-23, and final-round coverage of the 87th U.S. Amateur championship at the Jupiter Hills Club in Jupiter, Fla., Aug. 30. . . . ESPN will televise the first two rounds of the PGA Championship Thursday and Friday.