Dinah Shore Golf Tournament : Alcott Finds Her Zone; Spencer-Devlin Doesn’t

Going one-on-one with the Mission Hills golf course Friday, Amy Alcott went into a zone.

Since Alcott is about as aggressive as a used-car salesman, it’s a zone offense, not a zone defense.

When she’s in a zone, Alcott knows her game is right where it should be. Alcott shot a six-under-par 66 to take the second-round lead in the Nabisco Dinah Shore, on a day when her game reached a zone, all right--the ozone.

“I played as good as I can play,” Alcott said. “It was a fabulous round. I was very much in the zone.”

Now, she is very much in the lead, although her margin is just a single shot over Colleen Walker, who had a 65, the day’s best round.

But one shot is good enough for Alcott.

“I’m right where I like to be,” she said.

The 33-year-old Santa Monica resident didn’t win a tournament in 1987, the only year in her 13-year career that she hadn’t won at least one event.

Although Alcott did have six top-10 finishes and won $125,000, it’s still her longest non-winning streak. So this is sort of a comeback year for Alcott, even if the goal of winning again isn’t exactly tormenting her.

Winning usually happens unexpectedly, she says.

“You just fall into it,” Alcott said. “It’s like getting the last seat in the movie theater. You just get lucky.”

All the field got lucky Friday when the wind disappeared, and the number of players under par increased dramatically. There were 8 golfers under par in Thursday’s wind, but Friday, 38 made it.

Alcott’s rounds of 71-66 gave her a 36-hole total of 137. After rounds of 73-65, Walker, who chipped in birdies from 20 and 30 feet, was at 138. Two shots off the lead in third place was Marta Figueras-Dotti, who shot a 69.

First-round leader Muffin Spencer-Devlin dropped seven shots off the lead with a 76. She drove out of bounds on the second hole and didn’t feel right all day.

“I couldn’t concentrate,” she said. “It was too pretty.”

Spencer-Devlin wasn’t too concerned, though. Like Alcott, she had also found her zone.

“I feel like I played back into my comfort zone,” she said. “Some people like to lead. I just don’t feel comfortable leading the tournament. I’d rather lurk. I’m lurking right now.”

With two rounds left, a victory may be lurking around the next corner for Alcott, who blamed last year’s slump on a thyroid condition that made her listless.

There is certainly nothing wrong with her game now. Alcott began with three consecutive birdies, but she ran into trouble on the 375-yard No. 6, a par-4 hole.

Alcott’s second shot, a 7-iron, splashed into the water. She dropped another ball and got within 8 feet of the hole, but she missed it and wound up with a double bogey. Alcott said she wasn’t worried.

“I had 12 more holes to play,” she said. “If you let it get to you, you’ll probably make a lot more of them. You’ve just got to trust yourself. It’s just a round of golf. The sun is still going to come up in the morning.”

Alcott came back with a 25-foot birdie chip on No. 8, a 15-foot birdie putt on No. 9 and 12-foot birdie putts on Nos. 11 and 12. She went to seven under par for the day on No. 15 when she holed a wedge from 40 yards for another birdie, then to eight under par after rolling in a 15-foot birdie putt on the 16th.

Things were going so well for her that not even a bogey on the 17th, when she missed the green, could deter Alcott from completing her appointed round with concentration intact.

The Alcott zone is a pretty powerful thing. She has had it for quite a long time.

“My mother used to say if I was watching a program on TV, the house could be burning down around me and I wouldn’t know it,” Alcott said.

If her position on the leader board is not yet secure, Alcott said she feels no pressure to still be there on Sunday night.

“If it doesn’t happen, I’ll go to my grave knowing I was one of the best women golfers who ever lived,” she said. “But I don’t stay awake at night worrying about it. Probably, in my heart, I think I am the best.”

Meanwhile, the longest hitter on the LPGA tour made another big impression. Laura Davies reached the 487-yard 18th in two when she scorched a 4-iron 197 yards to the green. The only other woman to do that here was Mickey Wright.

“I would pay 20 bucks tomorrow just to come out here and see her on 9 and 18,” Alcott said.

Davies shot a 69 for a 36-hole total of 147, which is 10 shots behind Alcott.

Alcott has won 26 tournaments in her career and that leaves her only 4 victories short of the 30 required to enter the LPGA Hall of Fame.

Walker is 29 wins short of the Hall of Fame, but her 9-iron should probably be enshrined immediately. On the 10th, Walker chipped in from 30 feet, and two holes later, she chipped in again from 20 feet, using her 9-iron both times.

A fifth-place finisher in last year’s Dinah Shore, Walker has already won $42,686 in 1988 with four top-10 finishes in six tournaments.

Walker married Ron Bakich in November, but decided to play under her maiden name instead of Bakich to avoid confusion.

“It’s too hard to pronounce, too hard to write, you always have to spell it to people and everybody knows how to spell Walker,” she explained.

Rosie Jones and Debbie Massey were in fourth place at 140, three shots behind. Massey, who had a 68, said Friday was the time to make a move.

“It’s moving day,” she said. “Some people are moving out.”

Jones startled the media after her round of 67.

“I have an announcement to make,” she said. “I have decided to withdraw from the tournament. My caddy and I have decided to run away to Las Vegas and get married in the Chapel of Love.”

Jones paused for a few seconds.

“April Fools!” she said.

“I can see the headline: ‘Leader Gives Up Title to Take Husband.’ No way!”