PEBBLE BEACH NATIONAL PRO-AM : Detour in Ice Plant Costs Norman a Share of Lead

Greg Norman came all the way from Australia to see a thick, green ground cover called ice plant. And when Norman found some at the 16th hole at Cypress Point, he really wished he hadn’t.

That visit to the ice plant cost Norman a double bogey and the first-round lead of the AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, which needed just one day to weed out its leader.

Jim Booros, Mark Calcavecchia and Jim Gallagher Jr., shot 67s Thursday to take a one-stroke lead over Norman, Tom Watson and four others.

Norman had a two-stroke lead when he teed the ball up on the famed No. 16 at Cypress Point. That didn’t last long.

Statistically the toughest hole on the PGA Tour, the 16th is 231 yards long, but more than 200 of them are over water.

It is probably the most photographed hole on the tour. It is also probably the most cursed. The wind is usually tricky, and it changed direction just before Norman hit.

Norman hit his ball into the ice plant short of the green, where he stood with one foot on the rocks and tried to dig the ball out with a sand wedge.

He needed a shovel. The ball popped straight up into the air and plopped back into the ice plant again. Norman’s third shot made the green and the rest, he said, was easy.

“I two-putted for an easy 5,” he said.

Norman said there is no such thing as ice plant in Australia.

“And we’re not going to import it, either.”

Watson played in the same foursome with Norman and also bogeyed No. 16 to finish with a 68, the same as Norman, who closed with a bogey on 18. Mark Brooks, Craig Stadler, John Huston and Ben Crenshaw also had 68s.

“Who’s leading this tournament?” Watson asked. When he was told that one of the leaders was Booros, Watson was asked what he knew of him.

“I know you spell his name with two o’s,” he said.

Uh, there are three o’s in Booros, Tom.

“Put me back in grade school,” he said.

Booros, 36, has been the head pro at the Allentown, Pa., municipal golf course the last nine years. He’s gone to 10 qualifying schools and won his card three times, most recently in 1987.

The 1973 Pennsylvania Publinx champion played the kind of round he had only dreamed about.

“I still can’t believe I shot a 30 on the front nine,” Booros said.

He did. It came after a 37 on the back nine--he started on No. 10--to tie Calcavecchia, who won the Honda tournament in Coral Springs, Fla., last year, and Gallagher, who didn’t win anything last year.

Gallagher lost his card when he won $39,402 to place 166th on the money list. He was asked his status for this year.

“I have no status,” he said. “I am a nobody.”

So it probably seems that nobody has a share of the lead.

Gallagher is playing here because he got an exemption from the tournament committee after he wrote a letter asking to be in the field. He also wrote letters and sent resumes to play in other tournaments into the summer, but he hasn’t had any response.

And how does Gallagher feel about it all?

“I’m just happy to be here,” he said.

Unless his letters are answered, he won’t be anywhere else. Because he failed in qualifying school, Gallagher can only play in tournaments where he gets exemptions and he is limited to just five of those.

“I’m just hoping somebody will remember something I’ve done,” he said.

On the other hand, Norman wouldn’t mind forgetting what he had done on the 16th hole. In fact, he almost did. After his disaster there, a fan asked him if he were finished.

“Yeah, I’m not gonna play the last three,” he said.

Both Norman and Watson got into trouble after waiting nearly 40 minutes to hit their tee shots on the 16th because there were already four groups on the tee ahead of them.

Watson kept busy during the delay.

“I talked to Clint (Eastwood), I talked to (owner) Bob Lurie about the Giants, I talked to (singer) Huey Lewis about his tour,” he said.

The wind changed suddenly, blowing left to right. Norman and Watson used 2-irons, and Watson said he should have used a 4-wood. Even though Watson’s drive landed in a bunker, he chipped up to the green.

Watson sank a short putt for a bogey and considered himself lucky.

“I made a bad mistake, but I got away with what could have been a worse round,” he said.

If Watson and Norman played 16 poorly, a well-known amateur playing two groups ahead of them didn’t. Eastwood, the mayor of Carmel, hit a drive that made his day, landing on the green.

“He hit the best shot of anybody I saw,” Watson said. “It looked a heck of a lot better than my rope hook 2-iron.”